Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious on…
October 1849 CE
He is taken to the Washington Medical College where he dies on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.
Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own.
He is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say that Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul".
All medical records have been lost, including his death certificate.
Newspapers at the time report Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.
The actual cause of death remains a mystery.
Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera,[76] and rabies.
One theory dating from 1872 suggests that cooping was the cause of Poe's death, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.
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