How did Edgar Allan Poe die?
He died at Washington College Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, after being found face-down in a gutter. That is the only thing historians agree on. For a long time it was assumed that he died of liver failure brought on by a life of drunken excess. Recent examination of the evidence, however, has indicated that after his death his body exhibited symptoms of diabetes or rabies, while shortly before his death, he was reported behaving in a manner consistent with mild epilepsy, or perhaps a flare-up of bipolar disorder. Other theories suggested have included syphilis, a digestive disorder, or even murder. All contemporary records, including Poe’s death certificate, have been lost. At the time of his death many people associated with him muddied the issue by offering contradictory claims regarding his circumstances, including Dr. E. Snodgrass, who found him when he was dying, and Rufus Griswold, Poe’s unofficial biographer, who bore a grudge against Poe and wrote a slanderous (and probably
