How do you think Egar Allen Poe Died? Did he die of drugs? Did he kill him self? Or many other hypothesis'. If you have any further information please contact me. Whitney Tyler

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Answers

Indeed, there is much mystery surrounding the reasons for the death of one of the greatest poets the world has yet known. He was found lying next to a road in Baltimore on October 3rd, 1849, and was taken to a hospital in Baltimore. Four days later, on October 7th, 1849, he died of reasons unkown. The most widely accepted cause of death is rabies, as ironic as that is (he loved cats), but it may have been some other illness. I hope that this may help you. P A Regan

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

I agree with the previous answer, although he was found in a ditch so some say it was a rodent. Another possibilty is the that he died of a drug overdose. No offence to the Great Poet but he was a drunk.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001

he fell asleep many a time on a sidewalk, he was a drunk and he also was an opium addict.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

egar allen poe dewelled in the land of insanity. Dark and mysterious was his work, Chilling and strange was his mind as so was his death. (As it adds to a picture)

-- Anonymous, October 14, 2001

Drugyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001

voodoo dall was milested sexualy

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2002

he was a crack head that took to much oppium. I believe he deserves to rought in hel

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2002

He died of a proable cause. He was a great poet and story writer.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2002

Poe's mind was a tangled web of psychosis, death and escape. He probably doesn't even know how he died. Between the booze, drugs and his methodical yet overwhelmingly troubled mind, he killed himself...like all great poets do.

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2002

I think that it could be a number of things like he died because he was a drunk and he could have been takng drugs at the same time and would have died bewcause he could not take i

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2002

Many rumors have been spread but I nathaniel timithy worthington know the truth. He was a drunk as you have heard and was no stranger to the drugs but thats not what took him out. It was a 3 and half foot tall midget women with an attitudde and balls to back it up. Edgar was a little ladies man. He liked the little ladies. But he messed with the wrong little lady. SHe found out about the other little ladies. But when Edgar came back to her she had a plan. They were getting ready to make love. But edgar as she knew liked it rough so she tied him up. and choked him with the dildo she just pulled out of his bottom. And thats my story.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

Well from what I've read from hours of research and studying, I've narrowed it down as to how the great Edgar Allen Poe actually died. I may come as a surprise to you, but he was actually killed in a mofia related incident. As you all know he really loved the crack cocain, and was a frequent visitor to the local whore house down the road, also know for its assortments of various alcohols. Well one night, after many months of crack cocain abuse and not selling any poems as to not regulate an income, he walked down to the local whore house high on crack. Not completely in his right mind he stubled into the house of whores, where once inside was instantly draw toward the booze and other liquors. After a couple hours of heavy drink and snorting crack lines with some whores, he invited them upstairs, but little did edgar know that one of the whores was a mob spy. When edgar and the whores reached his room, they brought out the sex toys. Now from what I've read, Edgar was a bit of a kinky preson. So he asked the whores to lube up some dildos and shove them into his anal cavity. After many hours of kinky sex Edgar wound up with his hands and feet tied together as he was dangling from the ceiling. All of a sudden 3 mobsters busted into the room and said if he didn't give the money he owed to them they would cut his gonads off and make him eat them. But as you already know he spent the last of his money on crack, women, and booze. So that my friends is how the great Edgar Allen Poe actually died, not from a drug over dose, and not from natural causes, but from choking on his own balls.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2002

After reading these ignorant responses I thought I have to share my reponse... After reading about him and researching I have come to the conclusion that he did not die from drug or boos or girls.. sex but not the kinda sex your thinking of. when they found him in the ditch they came to the conclusion that he was drunk. but no.. he was sadly have sex with animals while high on crank. he would find these animals and shave them naked. And after he was done he would make animal sacrificies to the GOD olibaba the god of goat raping. so how he really died is while have sex with this animal (goat) he was high on crack and began to have convolsions and the goat freaked out and started running and draged him along for the ride. so after being draged for miles he finnaly fell out and died right where he lay in the ditch of internal bleeding.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2002

calling him a druggy saying your happy he is burning in hell. maybe you should burn iin hell just leave him alone he died doing something he liked let it be writting,drinking, or drugs. leave him go.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2002

Why dont you people grow up? There are some of us (adults) that are really interested in how Egar Allen Poe really died! I have no idea how the great poet died, however you have wasted my time reading your childish responses. Grow up or at least go put a game in the computer something more equivlent to your own level.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2002

No one really knows how he died, unless of course he was murdered. However, I have been lead to believe that in his own world that he had been dead from quite some time and suffered endlessly as he wandered among the living. That is why I believe he turned to the drugs and alcohol. I have read some of his books in school such as "the Vulture Eye." In alot of his books and poems I believe that he states that people think he is mad but really in his own state he isn't and that he is the only sane person in his own realm.As to how he died we do not know and probably never will. We can only answer in question to the desirable equation. Not in this world but in his mind I believe he was dead way before anyone or himself killed him.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2002

P.S please email me if you have any comments.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2002

I would like to make a correstion to the title "The Vulture Eye." The correct title is "Tell-Tale Heart."

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

I think he was a depresee and he just couldn't take anymore, although he had every thing he thought he had nothing.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2002

EGAR, WAS STRUGGLING FROM A MENTAL ILLNESS. HE OFTEN USED DRUGS AND ALCOHOL TO COVER THIS UP.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2002

I think that the comment by Sam Petterson was totaly uncalled for. To make such a comment to say Mr. Poe should "burn in hell" is a little over the top. we all make sin's in some way, and for your info sammy boy... most poet's, music writer's, singers and other artist are trubled souls in some way; maybe you need to look at your own unhappyness instead of judging everyone els, take a hard look in the miror because none of us are perfect. You should realise that Edgar Allen Poe is one of the best poest of all time and probibly would not have been if he were sober, like most poets of that time.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2002

I think edgar did not die from drugs ,and he did not kill himself I think he died of old age .When he died he had somneone dispose of his body.Just becuz people say he wz crazy I don't think he is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2002

my reaserch has shown that e.a.p was in a secreat societie of smugling drugs into the country. his poems were just a front. his poems were good because he was burnt or high all the time.....any person who is high says some wierd thing like he did. the name of his drug ring was pretty purple pink pokadoted prancing ponies......i have concluded this by reading his works and if you take the first letter of certain series of words u get this fraise in several of his works. he riped of one of his drug supliers and they made a plan to kill him so the gave him a hot shot of opium and he died on his way home.and thats his death the way i see it.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2002

rewerewe

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2002

e allen poe died because he was poee nothing to eat/////////

-- Anonymous, October 21, 2002

HE WAS A POTHEAD

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2002

i think that he died of drugs/alchole. and what about his grave. the rose and liquor is kind of strange. n e one think so also?

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2002

Edgar shot up on opium, slipped into a coma, and died 4 days later at the hospital. as for the old age theory, HE WAS 40 YEARS OLD WHEN HE DIED. he was poor, but he managed to always have food for him and his cousin ((sadly, also his wife)) and his mother-in-law ((aunt)). this is the answer that is true. DRUG OVERDOSE. he had many problems and took drugs to "solve" them

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2002

i think that this really isnt the issue .he was a good writer and poet and you should just be glad that he did such fine work.you are probally pot heads yourself or know a pot head but you aint waottied about that.look at the better things in life instead of the worse bitches

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002

After everything i've heard, i think he probably died from some kind of drug accident. I think he was one of, if not the beat poet in the world. I would really like to find out the truth.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2002

Poe's use of drugs is purely a literary device. For some of Poe's more fantastic storylines, his narrators admit the use of opium but one should carefully note that it is Poe's narrators who use drugs, not Poe himself. Poe's stories are often written in the first person. Since they were printed over his name, many of his readers have failed to distinguish the actual writer from the fictional writer. This understandable confusion began with the publication of Poe's Tales, which more than one critic dismissed as "the strange outpourings of an opium eater". Although some wondered if Poe's wild imagination was fired by drugs, no one seems to have seriously accused him of this habit during his lifetime. Even Poe's bitter enemy Dr. Thomas Dunn English was willing to admit "Had Poe the opium habit when I knew him, I should, both as a physician and a man of observation, have discovered it in his frequent visits to my rooms, my visits to his house, and our meetings elsewhere. I saw no signs of it." In 1884, Dr. John Carter, who knew and examined Poe, wrote to G. E. Woodberry, "Poe never used opium in any instance that I am aware of... I never heard it hinted at before, and if he had contracted the habit, it would have accompanied him to Richmond". Following this excerpt from Dr. Carter, Woodberry states his own opinion that "I incline to the view that Poe began the use of drugs in Baltimore, that his periods of abstinence from liquor were periods of at least moderate indulgence in opium... " As he never even met Poe, and offers no evidence to support his position, Woodberry's conjecture may best be ignored.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

Unfortunately, in his 1926 & 1934 biography Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, Hervey Allen mistakenly quoted Woodberry's note as if it were part of John Carter's letter. This episode is an enlightening example of how even a competent scholar is capable of making an embarrassingly simple error. The implication in this case can be very serious as most readers accept what they see at face value and are unlikely to try to verify the original sources. The reader of Allen's Israfel is left with the strong but false impression that Poe has been labeled an opium user by a medically trained first hand witness. The single instance of Poe claiming a use of opium is in a letter to Annie Richmond of November 16, 1848. In a series of rambling sentences, he tells Mrs. Richmond of his purported suicide attempt using laudanum. (If true, his lapsing into unconsciousness before he could take the full dose is likely an argument that his body was not accustomed to the drug. Also possible is the assertion that the whole episode is too wildly romantic to be anything more than one of Poe's fanciful fabrications, created to impress his friend with the depth of his despair.) It is reasonable to presume that Poe did use some opium medically as it was a common pharmaceutical ingredient his day, but that is all. In short, it can be said with confidence that Poe was not a drug user.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

In an analysis almost 147 years after his death, doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center believe that writer Edgar Allan Poe may have died as a result of rabies, not from complications of alcoholism. Poe's medical case was reviewed by R. Michael Benitez, M.D., a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center. His review is published in the September 1996 issue of Maryland Medical Journal. "No one can say conclusively that Poe died of rabies, since there was no autopsy after his death," says Dr. Benitez, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "But the historical accounts of Poe's condition in the hospital a few days before his death point to a strong possibility that he had rabies." Poe was 39 years old when he died on October 7, 1849. He had traveled by train from Richmond, Virginia to Baltimore a few days earlier, on September 28. While in Richmond, he had proposed marriage to a woman who would have become his second wife. (His first wife had died). Poe intended to continue on to Philadelphia to finalize some business when he became ill. Poe was discovered lying unconscious on September 28 on a wooden plank outside Ryan's saloon on Lombard St. in Baltimore. He was taken to Washington College Hospital (now Church Hospital). Historical accounts of his hospitalization indicate that at first he was delirious with tremors and hallucinations, then he slipped into a coma. He emerged from the coma, was calm and lucid, but then lapsed again into a delirious state, became combative, and required restraint. He died on his fourth day in the hospital. According to an account published in the Maryland Historical Magazine in December 1978, the Baltimore Commissioner of Health, Dr. J.F.C. Handel certified that the cause of Poe's death was "congestion of the brain."

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

In his analysis, Dr. Benitez examined all of the possible causes for delirium, which include trauma, vascular disorders in the brain, neurological problems such as epilepsy, and infections. Alcohol withdrawal is also a potential cause of tremors and delirium, and Poe was known to have abused alcohol and opiate drugs. However, the medical records indicate that Poe had abstained from alcohol for six months before his death, and there was no evidence of alcohol use when he was admitted. "In addition, it is unusual for patients suffering from alcohol withdrawal to become acutely ill, recover for a brief time, and then worsen and die," says Dr. Benitez, who adds that withdrawal from opiates does not produce the same scenario of symptoms as Poe's illness. Dr. Benitez says in the final stages of rabies, it is common for people to have periods of confusion that come and go, along with wide swings in pulse rate and other body functions, such as respiration and temperature. All of that occurred for Poe, according to medical records kept by Dr. John J. Moran who cared for Poe in his final days. In addition, the median length of survival after the onset of serious symptoms is four days, which is exactly the number of days Poe was hospitalized before his death.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

Poe's doctor also wrote that in the hospital, Poe refused alcohol he was offered and drank water only with great difficulty. Dr. Benitez says that seems to be a symptom of hydrophobia, a fear of water, which is a classic sign of rabies. Dr. Benitez theorizes that Poe may have gotten rabies from being bitten by one of his pets. He was known to have cats and other pets. Although there is no account that Poe had been bitten by an animal, it is interesting that in all the cases of human rabies in the United States from 1977 to 1994, people remembered being bitten in only 27 percent of those cases. In addition, people can have the infection for up to a year without major symptoms. The Poe case was presented originally to Dr. Benitez as part of a weekly meeting of medical center physicians, called the Clinical Pathologic Conference. It is an exercise in which a complex case is presented without a diagnosis, and physicians discuss how they would determine a patient's condition and course of treatment. Dr. Benitez did not know that the patient in question at this particular conference was Edgar Allan Poe.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

The idea to analyze Poe's death came from Philip A. Mackowiak, M.D., professor of medicine and vice-chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center. "Poe's death is one of the most mysterious deaths in literary history, and it provided us with an interesting case in which to discuss many principles of medicine," says Dr. Mackowiak, who runs the weekly Clinical Pathologic Conference at the medical center. Dr. Mackowiak agrees with Dr. Benitez that rabies was the most likely cause of Poe's death, based on the available evidence. He adds, though, that after Poe's death, his doctor went on the lecture circuit and gave varying accounts of the writer's final days. "The account on which Dr. Benitez based his findings was more consistent with rabies than with anything else, but the definitive cause of Poe's death will likely remain a mystery," says Dr. Mackowiak. Edgar Allan Poe is buried in a cemetery next to Westminister Hall at Fayette and Greene Streets, just one block from the University of Maryland Medical Center.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

"Edgar shot up on opium, slipped into a coma, and died 4 days later at the hospital." There is NO evidence that Poe "shot up on opium".

"as for the old age theory, HE WAS 40 YEARS OLD WHEN HE DIED." Average life expectancy for a man born in the eraly 1800s was only 35.35 years - so for the time HE WAS OLD.

"he was poor, but he managed to always have food for him and his cousin ((sadly, also his wife)) and his mother-in-law ((aunt))." NOT TRUE. They often went without food. Poe also could not afford proper medical treatment and medicine for his wife when she was dying of TB. You need to get your facts straight before posting or at the very least state that you are posting YOUR OPINION.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

How did Edgar Allan Poe die? What were the circumstances that surrounded his death? These and many other questions have been haunting literary researchers for decades. It appeared that we might never get an answer ? There's been no shortage of fantastic ideas about the possible cause of Poe's death and the reason he was found in an apparent state of extreme intoxication at a tavern. We could discuss the connections between Edgar Allan Poe’s story of “The Cask of Amontillado” and the actual life experiences of Poe. From the first Edgar Allan Poe story a person reads, the seed is planted that grows into the question of whether or not the author was as “twisted” as his stories. We could analyzs Poe's reason for writing it in first person, and conclude that we are more likely to sympathize with the narrator, so the shock is all the greater when he turns out to be the villain.

With kind regards

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2003

i think he went crazy. you can tell that by some of his poems. he probably killed himself after a while. he probably tried many times to but failed. then finally he did.

-- Anonymous, January 13, 2003

Some people wrote about immature stuff such as Egar having died of sex in a crack house. I'm 15 and I think this is super immature. I have done research and iI have found that Edgar got into a fight at a bar and got really sick after drinking too much. He passed out on the side of the road and was taken to the hospital and died 4 days later. So all of you JERKS who were disrespecting him, don't confuse him with your pathetic lives. He certainly doesn't deserve this.

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2003

My opinion, to simply state, is that Edgar died in the way he did to erk us, drive us crazy, to figure it out. thats just the sort of thing he would do

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2003

I think most all of you had very good opinions on how Egar Allen Poe passed. i don't have any idea however...thank you for your imputs.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2003

Poe was a known alcoholic. He most probably died of acute alcohol withdraw(the DT's). 10-12% of all alcoholics die after onset of the DT's.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2003

i cant believe a lot of the BS im hearing here. Poe was one of the greatest poets of all time and should be treated with some respect. He was a genius, his vocabulary was impressive. i would love to see any one of you criticizers go through his life, living it day-to-day at that time period, and not try some drugs or alcohol at least every once and a while. unless you know exactly what he was going through, you have absolutely no right to criticize him or his decisions.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2003

I think befor you write something , you should write it done and rethink it. For all of you who wrote that he was a drugy, and this and that, you should know his life had to be hard on him. Yes he took deepreshion pills but yet he is still a great poet. He may of killed hisself but noone knows if anyone does it is he. But he is dead. Befor you go and say he is or what he was get the facts befor putting down a man of great work.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2003

i believe that after all that i have read and learnd about Poe that he had in fact died of rabies or congestion of the brain. I have little respect for those of you who think that he was a rapiest to animals and a sex oholick. I think that he was a great writter and more people should respect him

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2003

I think he die of dugs or druk driving

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2003

Dude, he died of a heart attack.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2003

I agree with Pamela Copley first off and like anyone else who agree of his suffering from the losses of the family members was eased by altering his state of mind and writings. In the era of time he lived little was known about TB, He confused by the coughing of blood he witnessed from his Grandmother, Mother, Beloved wife Virgina who he cared for all in poverty wrote: Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, To quote the sleeper: As he watched and cared for his wife in her weaken state. Poe was only paid the sum of Fourteen cents for the Raven By far a rich man by any account Just well known I believe after the death of his wife he deteriorated from lack of food and exposure to the elements lying at her grave in grief and altered states comes the poem Annabel Lee: the quote: For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams: thus his reputation for sleeping in the streets. Now this my theory of how he died explains at least the state of mind and body and the possibility that he too died of the dreaded lung disease on cold night in the street. None the less God gave him eternal life with fame because he was a care giver misunderstood by the ignorance of common man to shallow to see past the words. Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear some might say: God is the power and the glory by which we all bow before

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2003

Maybe instead of dwelling on his death you should celebrate his life and just enjoy the work he did before he past away

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2003

EAP died? never did he died; he lived in the past, the present and will live on in the future! --that i think.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2003

(Excerpt from a Poe site, on Poe dying of rabies.) Tuberculosis, epilepsy, diabetes and even rabies have also been suggested. There are interesting elements -- and difficulties -- in all of these theories. The idea that Poe died from rabies, for example, was presented in 1996. The article, by Dr. Michael Benitez, was ostensibly based on Moran's account of Poe's final days, but apparently filtered through a case-study, itself taken largely from an article by Charles Scarlett, Jr. ("A Tale of Ratiocination: The Death and Burial of Edgar Allan Poe," Maryland Historical Magazine, 1978). Scarlett's badly-documented and rather confused presentation includes a comment that Poe "was given a drink of water to determine if he could swallow freely, but he did this with difficulty" (Scarlett, p. 365). Benitez takes this as evidence of hydrophobia, a fear of water that is crucial to his argument of rabies. Although the meager footnotes to Scarlett's article would lead one to believe that the observation is from Moran's 1885 book, it is in fact from his 1875 article in the New York Herald. Had Benitez actually read Moran's later telling of the tale, he would no doubt have been disappointed to find that the sentence was changed to read, "I put a small lump of ice in his mouth, and gave him a sip of water, to ascertain what difficulty, if any, he had in swallowing. He drank half a glass without any trouble" (Moran, 1885, p. 71). Without evidence of hydrophobia, the possiblity of rabies evaporates.

-- Anonymous, September 08, 2003

IT'S SIMPLE PEOPLE!!!! The reason Egar Allen Poe got drunk so easly after one or two drinks was because he was allergic to aholcol.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2003

YOU ALL R FUCKIN GAY AND HAVE NO LIFE AT ALL AND WHO EVA CAME UP WIT THIS ? SHOULD BURN IN HELL CAUSE THIS IS THE ONLY THING THEY EVA DO AND WHO THE FUCK CARES HOW HE DIED HE IS ONLY A PERSON SO JUST SHUT THE FUCKIN HELL UP!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, October 14, 2003

here's s many different ways ths man coudl've died. And since the fact that there are not really any records or proof giving us an exact answer, we'll never know 100% for sure. But I think he may have gone crazy. He lost the only woman he had ever loved and was a alcholic. He may just ahve gone mad. Mayb he drank wayyyy too much that day and just went crazy. the foaming at the mouth could've been nything. You can make oyur self sick because you're so depressed and I believe that's what he did.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2003

from what my seventh grade class read I think he died of a head conncosion in the middle of the hallway I got this info from his poem the Raven

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2003

HE was a mental ill drunk, he was so drunk he might of just killed himself. Or God decided it was his time to die.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2003

Many rumors have been spread but I nathaniel timithy worthington know the truth. He was a drunk as you have heard and was no stranger to the drugs but thats not what took him out. It was a 3 and half foot tall midget women with an attitudde and balls to back it up. Edgar was a little ladies man. He liked the little ladies. But he messed with the wrong little lady. SHe found out about the other little ladies. But when Edgar came back to her she had a plan. They were getting ready to make love. But edgar as she knew liked it rough so she tied him up. and choked him with the dildo she just pulled out of his bottom. And thats my story.Well from what I've read from hours of research and studying, I've narrowed it down as to how the great Edgar Allen Poe actually died. I may come as a surprise to you, but he was actually killed in a mofia related incident. As you all know he really loved the crack cocain, and was a frequent visitor to the local whore house down the road, also know for its assortments of various alcohols. Well one night, after many months of crack cocain abuse and not selling any poems as to not regulate an income, he walked down to the local whore house high on crack. Not completely in his right mind he stubled into the house of whores, where once inside was instantly draw toward the booze and other liquors. After a couple hours of heavy drink and snorting crack lines with some whores, he invited them upstairs, but little did edgar know that one of the whores was a mob spy. When edgar and the whores reached his room, they brought out the sex toys. Now from what I've read, Edgar was a bit of a kinky preson. So he asked the whores to lube up some dildos and shove them into his anal cavity. After many hours of kinky sex Edgar wound up with his hands and feet tied together as he was dangling from the ceiling. All of a sudden 3 mobsters busted into the room and said if he didn't give the money he owed to them they would cut his gonads off and make him eat them. But as you already know he spent the last of his money on crack, women, and booze. So that my friends is how the great Edgar Allen Poe actually died, not from a drug over dose, and not from natural causes, but from choking on his own balls.After reading these ignorant responses I thought I have to share my reponse... After reading about him and researching I have come to the conclusion that he did not die from drug or boos or girls.. sex but not the kinda sex your thinking of. when they found him in the ditch they came to the conclusion that he was drunk. but no.. he was sadly have sex with animals while high on crank. he would find these animals and shave them naked. And after he was done he would make animal sacrificies to the GOD olibaba the god of goat raping. so how he really died is while have sex with this animal (goat) he was high on crack and began to have convolsions and the goat freaked out and started running and draged him along for the ride. so after being draged for miles he finnaly fell out and died right where he lay in the ditch of internal bleeding.No one really knows how he died, unless of course he was murdered. However, I have been lead to believe that in his own world that he had been dead from quite some time and suffered endlessly as he wandered among the living. That is why I believe he turned to the drugs and alcohol. I have read some of his books in school such as "the Vulture Eye." In alot of his books and poems I believe that he states that people think he is mad but really in his own state he isn't and that he is the only sane person in his own realm.As to how he died we do not know and probably never will. We can only answer in question to the desirable equation. Not in this world but in his mind I believe he was dead way before anyone or himself killed him. Poe's use of drugs is purely a literary device. For some of Poe's more fantastic storylines, his narrators admit the use of opium but one should carefully note that it is Poe's narrators who use drugs, not Poe himself. Poe's stories are often written in the first person. Since they were printed over his name, many of his readers have failed to distinguish the actual writer from the fictional writer. This understandable confusion began with the publication of Poe's Tales, which more than one critic dismissed as "the strange outpourings of an opium eater". Although some wondered if Poe's wild imagination was fired by drugs, no one seems to have seriously accused him of this habit during his lifetime. Even Poe's bitter enemy Dr. Thomas Dunn English was willing to admit "Had Poe the opium habit when I knew him, I should, both as a physician and a man of observation, have discovered it in his frequent visits to my rooms, my visits to his house, and our meetings elsewhere. I saw no signs of it." In 1884, Dr. John Carter, who knew and examined Poe, wrote to G. E. Woodberry, "Poe never used opium in any instance that I am aware of... I never heard it hinted at before, and if he had contracted the habit, it would have accompanied him to Richmond". Following this excerpt from Dr. Carter, Woodberry states his own opinion that "I incline to the view that Poe began the use of drugs in Baltimore, that his periods of abstinence from liquor were periods of at least moderate indulgence in opium... " As he never even met Poe, and offers no evidence to support his position, Woodberry's conjecture may best be ignored. Unfortunately, in his 1926 & 1934 biography Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, Hervey Allen mistakenly quoted Woodberry's note as if it were part of John Carter's letter. This episode is an enlightening example of how even a competent scholar is capable of making an embarrassingly simple error. The implication in this case can be very serious as most readers accept what they see at face value and are unlikely to try to verify the original sources. The reader of Allen's Israfel is left with the strong but false impression that Poe has been labeled an opium user by a medically trained first hand witness. The single instance of Poe claiming a use of opium is in a letter to Annie Richmond of November 16, 1848. In a series of rambling sentences, he tells Mrs. Richmond of his purported suicide attempt using laudanum. (If true, his lapsing into unconsciousness before he could take the full dose is likely an argument that his body was not accustomed to the drug. Also possible is the assertion that the whole episode is too wildly romantic to be anything more than one of Poe's fanciful fabrications, created to impress his friend with the depth of his despair.) It is reasonable to presume that Poe did use some opium medically as it was a common pharmaceutical ingredient his day, but that is all. In short, it can be said with confidence that Poe was not a drug user. In an analysis almost 147 years after his death, doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center believe that writer Edgar Allan Poe may have died as a result of rabies, not from complications of alcoholism. Poe's medical case was reviewed by R. Michael Benitez, M.D., a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center. His review is published in the September 1996 issue of Maryland Medical Journal. "No one can say conclusively that Poe died of rabies, since there was no autopsy after his death," says Dr. Benitez, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "But the historical accounts of Poe's condition in the hospital a few days before his death point to a strong possibility that he had rabies." Poe was 39 years old when he died on October 7, 1849. He had traveled by train from Richmond, Virginia to Baltimore a few days earlier, on September 28. While in Richmond, he had proposed marriage to a woman who would have become his second wife. (His first wife had died). Poe intended to continue on to Philadelphia to finalize some business when he became ill. Poe was discovered lying unconscious on September 28 on a wooden plank outside Ryan's saloon on Lombard St. in Baltimore. He was taken to Washington College Hospital (now Church Hospital). Historical accounts of his hospitalization indicate that at first he was delirious with tremors and hallucinations, then he slipped into a coma. He emerged from the coma, was calm and lucid, but then lapsed again into a delirious state, became combative, and required restraint. He died on his fourth day in the hospital. According to an account published in the Maryland Historical Magazine in December 1978, the Baltimore Commissioner of Health, Dr. J.F.C. Handel certified that the cause of Poe's death was "congestion of the brain." In his analysis, Dr. Benitez examined all of the possible causes for delirium, which include trauma, vascular disorders in the brain, neurological problems such as epilepsy, and infections. Alcohol withdrawal is also a potential cause of tremors and delirium, and Poe was known to have abused alcohol and opiate drugs. However, the medical records indicate that Poe had abstained from alcohol for six months before his death, and there was no evidence of alcohol use when he was admitted. "In addition, it is unusual for patients suffering from alcohol withdrawal to become acutely ill, recover for a brief time, and then worsen and die," says Dr. Benitez, who adds that withdrawal from opiates does not produce the same scenario of symptoms as Poe's illness. Dr. Benitez says in the final stages of rabies, it is common for people to have periods of confusion that come and go, along with wide swings in pulse rate and other body functions, such as respiration and temperature. All of that occurred for Poe, according to medical records kept by Dr. John J. Moran who cared for Poe in his final days. In addition, the median length of survival after the onset of serious symptoms is four days, which is exactly the number of days Poe was hospitalized before his death. Poe's doctor also wrote that in the hospital, Poe refused alcohol he was offered and drank water only with great difficulty. Dr. Benitez says that seems to be a symptom of hydrophobia, a fear of water, which is a classic sign of rabies. Dr. Benitez theorizes that Poe may have gotten rabies from being bitten by one of his pets. He was known to have cats and other pets. Although there is no account that Poe had been bitten by an animal, it is interesting that in all the cases of human rabies in the United States from 1977 to 1994, people remembered being bitten in only 27 percent of those cases. In addition, people can have the infection for up to a year without major symptoms. The Poe case was presented originally to Dr. Benitez as part of a weekly meeting of medical center physicians, called the Clinical Pathologic Conference. It is an exercise in which a complex case is presented without a diagnosis, and physicians discuss how they would determine a patient's condition and course of treatment. Dr. Benitez did not know that the patient in question at this particular conference was Edgar Allan Poe. The idea to analyze Poe's death came from Philip A. Mackowiak, M.D., professor of medicine and vice-chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center. "Poe's death is one of the most mysterious deaths in literary history, and it provided us with an interesting case in which to discuss many principles of medicine," says Dr. Mackowiak, who runs the weekly Clinical Pathologic Conference at the medical center. Dr. Mackowiak agrees with Dr. Benitez that rabies was the most likely cause of Poe's death, based on the available evidence. He adds, though, that after Poe's death, his doctor went on the lecture circuit and gave varying accounts of the writer's final days. "The account on which Dr. Benitez based his findings was more consistent with rabies than with anything else, but the definitive cause of Poe's death will likely remain a mystery," says Dr. Mackowiak. Edgar Allan Poe is buried in a cemetery next to Westminister Hall at Fayette and Greene Streets, just one block from the University of Maryland Medical Center. I agree with Pamela Copley first off and like anyone else who agree of his suffering from the losses of the family members was eased by altering his state of mind and writings. In the era of time he lived little was known about TB, He confused by the coughing of blood he witnessed from his Grandmother, Mother, Beloved wife Virgina who he cared for all in poverty wrote: Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, To quote the sleeper: As he watched and cared for his wife in her weaken state. Poe was only paid the sum of Fourteen cents for the Raven By far a rich man by any account Just well known I believe after the death of his wife he deteriorated from lack of food and exposure to the elements lying at her grave in grief and altered states comes the poem Annabel Lee: the quote: For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams: thus his reputation for sleeping in the streets. Now this my theory of how he died explains at least the state of mind and body and the possibility that he too died of the dreaded lung disease on cold night in the street. None the less God gave him eternal life with fame because he was a care giver misunderstood by the ignorance of common man to shallow to see past the words. Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear some might say: God is the power and the glory by which we all bow before.(Excerpt from a Poe site, on Poe dying of rabies.) Tuberculosis, epilepsy, diabetes and even rabies have also been suggested. There are interesting elements -- and difficulties -- in all of these theories. The idea that Poe died from rabies, for example, was presented in 1996. The article, by Dr. Michael Benitez, was ostensibly based on Moran's account of Poe's final days, but apparently filtered through a case-study, itself taken largely from an article by Charles Scarlett, Jr. ("A Tale of Ratiocination: The Death and Burial of Edgar Allan Poe," Maryland Historical Magazine, 1978). Scarlett's badly-documented and rather confused presentation includes a comment that Poe "was given a drink of water to determine if he could swallow freely, but he did this with difficulty" (Scarlett, p. 365). Benitez takes this as evidence of hydrophobia, a fear of water that is crucial to his argument of rabies. Although the meager footnotes to Scarlett's article would lead one to believe that the observation is from Moran's 1885 book, it is in fact from his 1875 article in the New York Herald. Had Benitez actually read Moran's later telling of the tale, he would no doubt have been disappointed to find that the sentence was changed to read, "I put a small lump of ice in his mouth, and gave him a sip of water, to ascertain what difficulty, if any, he had in swallowing. He drank half a glass without any trouble" (Moran, 1885, p. 71). Without evidence of hydrophobia, the possiblity of rabies evaporates.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2003

Most of these answers are acceptabe.....except the immatue ones made from people that obviously have only read rumors and not medical history. Though the rabies drugs, and alcohol are all really good explainations I dont think the real one is here anywhere that is on to peple with narrow minds. Edgar Allen Poe died from a congested brain. It wasn't any medical explaination his death was in his own mind. He was swallowed by his imagination dark and mysterious. It is said wen you sleep you go into the Astral PLains I dont think he really left I think he was transferred into another worl. A ark world made by his own mind. In his medical files it says histeria, dilundterror. Night terrors. multiple phobias. He was killed by something not in this world or by his own imagination.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2003

well from the symptoms that his friend who found him dieing on the the streets it is clearly that he had contracted rabies. Though people may think he dies from alchol poising or it had to do with the maffia it is not correct and i will prove my theroy

SYMPTOM: 1. he had a strange bite on his neck resembling one of a dog 2. he was foming at the mouth a little bit 3. he was all wabbly and ating as if he was drunk 4. he was not in his right mind 5. he was bringing up things that had happened years and years ago (random things)

and all these symptoms concludes that he dies of rabies

sara star (12 years old)

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2003

How did Poe died, or many other hypothesis'? Well, the absolute fact is he would've been dead a long time ago no matter how he died, so it'that's what happened. He croaked and will croak no more, Nevermore... Quoth the Robert, Nevermore.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2003

it seems as if none of you have actually read Poe's poems, or you just don't believe them. Poe speaks of demons and ghosts, you may call this ignorant, but i think you all are ignorant not to believe. You read Poe's works yet, will you believe he was taken by a demon? As someone stated, in his own realm he was the only normal one. maybe the only one who could see past the world of mortals and into a realm hidden from others. My belief is that he may have been possessed, for the demons did not want their secrets out and he knew too many. Poe was a paranoid man. Ever think there's a reason to be paranoid? You may say it was because of the drinking or drugs or whatever, but this is what i think, and i think many of us who believe this same theory are not far behind.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2003

His life was a living hell he was to far lostin his own world to realize that he was going down the drain and deeper in to his confessions that his life was not compleat with oput the love and conpanion ship of his wife and after lossing her he fell into dark depression of killing him self thats why he died

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2004

he choked on an 11 inch pecker. :-)

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2004

You all gave baf answers I'm trying to writ a paper and you losers are giving perverted answers

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2004

congestion of the brain or he was seriously stoned

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2004

you guys are a bunch of hooligans

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2004

I am trying to write a report and you people dont help at all. You all should grow up and get a life and quit ruining everyone elses.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2004

ok he died of a combination of things. 1st he was killed by a man becaus e of a bar dispute. 2nd he was a drunk and came out of the bar and fell in a ditch. 3rd very heavy drug user so a combination of all those thing will kill even the stronges man which he was not. and what was up every one he loved dieing the same way?

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2004