The Mysterious Ending for Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American author and poet. Most of his stories were mysterious, contained horror and suspense. Today, no one knows actually knows of how he died. There are multiple theories about his death. By 1845, Poe's family was living in New York City, where the writer was working at the New York Evening Mirror The magazine published a long poem by Poe, entitled The Raven (Shmoop). When The Raven was published Poe was at the peak in his peak. After The Raven, Poe just went downhill from there. His wife died of tuberculosis and people had thought he had gone insane. Poe denied it—"I was never really insane, except on occasions where my heart was touched" (Shmoop). He then ended up having a drinking problem and was depressed. Poe later traveled from Richmond, Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland. He was in Baltimore when he died. The first major theory is that he died from rabies. Dr. R. Michael Benitez, a cardiologist says that Poe was seen in a bar in October 1849, not drunk, but possibly wearing someone else's ruined clothes (Benitez). According to Benitez, Poe entered the hospital unconscious from falling. The next day he could not remember falling. Poe began to become confused and belligerent (Benitez). Benitez believed it was a case of rabies. He couldn’t drink water which was a side effect of rabies. Later Dr. Henry Wilde, who treats rabies said Poe “had all the symptoms of encephalitic rabies,” which was an inflammation of the brain. Jeff Jerome, the administrator of the Edgar Allan Poe Poe’s and Museum said that Poe almost surely didn’t die from alcohol and that he was sensitive to alcohol. The second theory of his death is that he died from alcoholism, becoming to drunk to drunk to protect himself from the wind and rain. Poe had been a drinker all of his life and his wife’s death caused him to drink more. On October 3, Poe was found in at Gunner’s Hall by a printer, Joseph Walker, semiconscious. To Walker Poe seemed to be “in