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On October
3, 1849, Poe was sent in a carriage to the Washington
College
Hospital (now called Church Hospital). (Some sources note the name of
the
institution as the Washington University of Baltimore, a title which
was
apparently adopted in 1839. A directory from 1847-1848 confirms this
name.
John J. Moran gives the name as both the Washington University Hospital
and the Washington College University Hospital.) The exact details of
Poe's
condition and treatment here are left to us only in the writings of his
attending physician, Dr. John J. Moran. Unfortunately, Dr. Moran (who
seems
to have given up medicine after 1851 and was briefly the mayor of Falls
Church, Virginia), appears to have made quite a career from 1875 until
his own death in 1888 lecturing on Poe's final days, the story growing
more elaborate and intriguing with each telling. Thus, what should be
the
best source is actually one of the least reliable. Poe's cousin,
Neilson
Poe, tried to visit on October 6 but was told that Edgar was too
excitable
and left without seeing him. Since Moran's testimony is all we have,
therefore,
we must be satisfied with it. With that caveat, the following
information
is an attempt to provide a relatively cohesive summary, based on
Moran's
various and often contradictory accounts.
Poe was taken to a room in one of the towers, where persons ill from
drinking were usually put to avoid disturbing the other patients. Moran
quickly decided, however, that Poe was not drunk and indeed had not
been
drinking. Since Poe's clothing had been taken and replaced with
something
much more worn and garish, Moran suspected that Poe may have been
robbed
and mugged. Poe came in and out of consciousness, at one point refusing
a glass of brandy offered as a stimulant. Moran then has Poe giving a
number
of absurdly flowery speeches, including "Language cannot tell the
gushing
well that swells, sways and sweeps, tempest-like, over me, signaling
the
'larm of death'." Asked about his friends, Poe supposedly replied that
"My best friend would be the man who gave me a pistol that I might blow
out my brains." By one of Moran's descriptions, Poe called out the name
of "Reynolds" (who has never satisfactorily been identified). At around
5:00 in the morning of Sunday, October 7, Poe died. His last words may
have been "Lord, help my poor soul."
Moran's description of the cause of Poe's death
is sufficiently vague that he probably did not know precisely what
happened
to his patient. He was apparently unaware of the fact that Poe had been
diagnosed sometime earlier with a weak heart and that another physician
said that he had "lesions on the brain." The only official cause of
death
noted at the time comes from the Baltimore Clipper as
"congestion
of the brain."
By 1851, Washington College Hospital was closed, a complete
financial
failure. Opened in 1836, it was intended as a substantial advance for
medical
practice and training. Unfortunately, it did not make any noticeable
improvements
in the success rates for operations, which had previously been done in
the doctors' houses. Faced with having to pay for the doctor's services
and frightened by stories of pain and mistakes made on the table, most
patients preferred to die from the disease rather than the cure. Unable
to make mortgage payments, the school abandoned the building in 1855.
It
was immediately seized by its primarily creditor, the Fells Point
Savings
Institution. In their haste, the prior owners left behind many of their
books, surgical tools and equipment. They also neglected to remove a
large
number of bones and other human remains, presumably used for anatomy
classes.
Local residents apparently made several attempts around 1856 to set
fire to the building. The likely reason for such hostile feelings was
probably
the building's grim association with body snatching. William N.
Batchelor
recalled, many years later, that there was a cemetery nearby where ". .
. many that had been buried . . . never stayed in their grave
twenty-four
hours before they were on a dissecting table. Some, no doubt, were
taken
to Washington College" (Batchelor, Recollections, p. 4). This
suspicion
was effectively confirmed when a man appeared at the door at about
midnight
of the Batchelor family's first day in the building in 1855. The man
had
with him a large bag containing a corpse and was most unhappy to find
that
the doctors had all left. Mr. Batchelor also recalled that, "It was
said
there had been people kidnapped and taken in there which made
Washington
College a horror to the people in the city of Baltimore. After the sun
went down you hardly ever saw a person anywhere near it" (Batchelor, Recollections,
p. 3). Although the specific charge may have had no merit in truth, the
rumor was no doubt spread widely and the fear it inspired genuine
enough.
In 1857, the building was purchased for $20,500 by an Episcopalian
group
and reopened as Church Home and Infirmary, a joint operation run under
the control of St. Andrew's Infirmary and the Church Home Society. A
cross,
rescued from the old burned-out St. Pauls Church, was added to the
point
of the cupola. In 1943, the institution was renamed the Church Home and
Hospital. Sometime after 1994, it became simply Church Hospital. |
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