The Mysterious Death of Harry Houdini

harry houdini died at 1 26 p.m on october 31st 1926 in room 401 of detroit's grace hospital the cause of death was peritonitis which is an infection of the peritoneum which is the membrane that surrounds the abdominal cavity today such infections are treated with antibiotics but in 1926 no such drugs were available the cause of the infection was a ruptured appendix which is a common cause of peritonitis appendix ruptures because of something called appendicitis which is an inflammation of the tiny finger shaped tube that hangs on the end of your large intestine it's a common illness according to webmd some one in 20 americans can expect to suffer from an appendicitis over their lifetime it can be quite deadly according to the reference book merck manual about 50 of people who suffer from an appendicitis will die if they don't receive either emergency surgery or antibiotics according to the bureau of statistics mortality statistics for 1926 some 15 000 americans died of appendicitis and yet the death of this magician from an apparently mundane source still somehow turned out to be controversial and mysterious the departure of one of the world's most well-known magicians on halloween 1926 is history that deserves to be remembered the controversy over houdini's death is inextricably linked with the controversy that was one of the great causes during his life anti-spiritualism spiritualism is a religious movement based on the belief that the spirits of the dead exist and have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living the moon began in upstate new york in the 1840s and so it grew into both a religious and a social movement as well as a profitable form of entertainment the movement gained strength during the u.s civil wars the deaths of so many soldiers had families to seek solace in attempts to communicate with the dead among those seeking such solace were reportedly president and mrs lincoln who held seances in the white house following the death of their son willie of a fever in 1862 by the late 19th century it's estimated that there was many as 8 million believers in spiritualism in the united states and europe the movement would expand again in houdini's time as a response to the massive casualties of the first world war but spiritualism always had its skeptics creating this conflict between people who were willing to debunk the actions of the spiritualists and those who made their living claiming to talk to the dead it's not really clear when harry houdini decided to become an anti-spiritualist but eventually he would become one of the most famous people who was seeking to discredit the movement there is a popular belief that suggests that houdini turned against the spiritualist movement after seeking the help of spiritualists following the death of his mother in 1913. being a magician the story goes harry recognized the spiritualist tricks and decided to bring the fraud to light however not only is there no record of houdini actually attending sansa's following his mother's death evidences come to light showing that he was opposing and working to expose mediums long before his mother's death writing on a website called skeptic blog in 2013 author daniel loxton noted a story told by a fellow magician and friend of houdini's joseph wren according to wren in 1896 he and houdini had published an anonymous letter in the new york mercury that read as i frequently attend spiritual seances where materialized spirits are said to come out of a cabinet i wonder if i would be breaking any law if i fired a pistol shot at one of these figures and a dead body was found on the floor as a result rin said for fully six months no medium advertised that he was giving materializing seances for fear some fanatic might be tempted to fire a shot at the cabinet spirit rim was recalling the event in 1946 and loxton was unable to locate the original publication of the letter but the story suggests that houdini had rejected and was actively opposing spiritualism long before the death of his mother if her death did affect him it was likely not from his attending seances thereafter but his realization that the desperation of grief makes a person an easy target for hucksters in the introduction to his 1924 book a magician among spirits chronicling his exploits debunking various spiritualists houdini noted that as a young magician he had dabbled in using tricks to duke people into thinking they were communicating with the dead however he wrote when i personally became afflicted with similar grief i wish grin that i should ever been guilty of such frivolity and for the first time realized that it bordered on crime i would have parted gladly with a large share of my earthly possessions for the solace of one word for my loved departed so it appears that houdini was always a skeptic but it was through his own laws that he decided to make a cause of investigating the spiritualists an investigation that led him to conclude that after 25 years of ardent research and endeavor i declared that nothing has been revealed to convince me that intercommunication has been established between spirits of the departed and those still in the flesh mary houdini was perhaps more responsible than any other person in the decline in the belief in spiritualism it was a position that put him at odds with a famous contemporary arthur conan doyle the arthur who created sherlock holmes and who was a great believer in spiritualism screenwriter and houdini enthusiast john cox speculated in his blog wild about harry that it might have been this competition with the famous author and the attention that it brought that was the two driving force behind houdini's obsession with debunking spiritualists in any case houdini's assault on mediums would reach its height and make its possible connection to his death in february 1926 when houdini went to testify before congress regarding legislation to ban fortune telling in the district of columbia houdini was combative in the testimony and having sent a compatriot to infiltrate the dc seance scene revealed the names of prominent politicians who were consulting psychics over matters of state the climax of his argument came when he pulled out an envelope with ten thousand dollars and offered to any of the various spiritualists who had attended the hearing who could prove their psychic powers the offer led to an argument with marsha champney who under the name madame marsha had famously been the psychic advisor to the late president harding's wife florence and claimed to have predicted the president's untimely death the argument led madame marsha to predict another untimely death saying that houdini would be dead by november and thus it seems suspicious to many when houdini died rather suddenly on october 31st could the appendicitis have really been a murder the series of events leading to houdini's death started october 11th a piece of equipment a heavy chain struck him during a performance of his famous chinese water torture cell trick in albany new york breaking his ankle he managed to complete the trick but while in pain houdini decided to continue his tour while injuries were common for the famously fit 52 year old given his profession in fact he had had several brushes with death during his career the broken ankle would lead to an odd turn of events on october 22nd houdini was in montreal where he gave a lecture about spiritualism and fraud at mcgill university and performed a show he'd invited some of the mcgill students to visit him in his dressing room at the princess theater on st catherine street just east of phillips square before a show one of the students was an artist and was sketching houdini in preparation for a portrait while he chatted with other students because of his broken ankle houdini was reclining on a couch at some point the discussion turned to harry's physical strength and one of the students an athlete named jocelyn gordon whitehead asked him if his stomach could as houdini often bragged withstand the mightiest punch houdini said it could and what had tested him by as a witness later recalled giving houdini some very hammer-like blows below the belt houdini was reclining on a couch at the time and looked as though he was in extreme pain and winced as each blow was struck houdini was in obvious pain and yet refused to go to a doctor and went on with the show by evening he was complaining of stomach cramps took a train to detroit where his next performance was to be held but was in enough pain to telegraph ahead for a doctor the doctor found that harry had a fever and suspected that he had appendicitis the doctor wanted houdini to have surgery immediately but the evening show had sold fifteen thousand dollars in tickets and houdini was determined to do the opening night reportedly saying to the doctor i'll do the show if it is my last he called off the show before the third act and by some accounts passed out a hotel doctor was called at the insistence of his wife and he was finally convinced to go to the hospital houdini underwent emergency surgery to remove his appendix but it was too late the appendix had already burst as the appendix is essentially a repository for bacteria ruptured appendix very often causes infection in 1926 before the advent of antibiotics peritonitis had a mortality rate of 80 percent despite the best care available at the time after hanging on for a few days houdini was eventually overcome by sepsis according to his wife his dying words were i'm tired of fighting i do not want to fight anymore it was october 31st and harry houdini was as madame marsha had predicted dead before november but was his death as it appeared just the result of a common appendicitis immediately suspicion fell upon the events of november 22 could the punches have caused the appendix to rupture the evidence was strong enough that houdini's life insurance company based on the testimony of two students who had been there that night declared that the punches had caused the appendix to rupture and thus the death was an accident as opposed to an illness causing it to pay out to his wife a double indemnity the account was accepted at the time and it became common knowledge that harry houdini had been killed after taking blows to the stomach but was that really the case in general appendicitis is caused by a blockage of the intestine not by blows to the stomach a 2010 study published in the annals of the royal college of surgeons of england determined that while it is possible for an appendix to rupture due to blunt force trauma it is very uncommon a review of literature identified only 28 cases of acute appendicitis caused by blunt abdominal trauma between 1991 and 2009. however in 2015 engineers at altair a company that uses advanced simulation technology use software design to model the human body enabling the simulation of pressure wave propagation inside the body the software designed by a french company is used to aid in the design of personal protections for many kinds of threats like punches falls ballistics and explosions doing multiple tests based on different kinds of punches the software determined that a punch was unlikely to rupture the appendix of a healthy male who was standing where the entire body could move backwards to absorb the flex of the punch however houdini was reclining reducing his ability to dissipate the force in the 2010 study it was found that the appendix was more prone to rupture if the person had an appendicolith a small stone that forms in some people's appendix the simulation concluded that had the blow landed in the right place and had houdini heading to pentacleth it could have caused the appendix to deform or rupture thus it is possible although far from proven that whiteheads blows cos houdini's appendicitis and eventual death given the details found the broken ankle becomes important or not for the broken ankle houdini almost certainly would have stood up for the test making it nearly impossible to deliver a blow with enough force to cause the appendix to rupture and that brings whitehead into the spotlight almost nothing is known about him the accounts from the night gary not just in the details of how he threw his punches by some accounts whitehead did not give houdini time to prepare by others who didn't he had given permission but said that whitehead struck more quickly than he expected but there were other questions as well witnesses contradicting each other as to when white had arrived and with whom wasn't even clear that he was an actual student at mcgill could he had been hired by some spiritualist angry houdini's crusade against them had he been the victim of murder little was known about whitehead he apparently largely disappeared after the night he punched houdini investigative journalist don bell spent years tracking down the enigmatic men's history publishing his findings in a 2005 book called the man who killed houdini white had turned out to live a troubled life potentially including mental health disorders and substance abuse but no clear connection to spiritualists could be made and if his blows were deliberately intended to harm houdini there was no evidence to prove it nor did he apparently ever offer a motive for doing so taking such secrets to his grave when he died in 1954 and so the death of harry houdini is still a mystery most historians assume that the appendicitis was normal and they only died because he took so long to seek treatment the blows that he took on november 22nd probably didn't cause his appendix to rupture if they had any impact at all it might have been to confuse him as to the cause of his stomach cramps and thus caused him to delay seeking treatment but those simulations as well as medical experience suggest that it's at least plausible that those punches could have been what causes appendix to rupture and thus caused his death and if that's true it's not really clear whether whitehead intended for that to happen or whether it was merely an accident and if he intended for it to happen it's not really clear what his motive might have been or if someone else might have been involved there's no real evidence that the spiritualists that hated houdini like madame marsha took some sort of step to ensure that he did not live to see november but the possibility cannot be entirely discounted and there's another possibility as well in 2007 the associated press reported that some descendants of houdini were seeking to have the body exhumed and tested for poisons something which wasn't done at the time because the assumption was that he had died of peritonitis but they didn't apparently fill out any legal paperwork to have that happen it's not really clear what the status of that request is but of course there is someone who might know harry houdini to prove that he was open-minded about the possibility of the dead contacting the living he made an agreement with his wife best that he would do his best after death to come back and reach out to her she held a seance every sunday for the year after his death and annually thereafter on halloween waiting for him to come back with the code words that they had agreed upon to prove that it was truly harry houdini after 10 years at least one hoax she gave up telling the press that 10 years is long enough to wait for any man spiritualists were undeterred by his absence though they said that houdini's ghost is merely being stubborn bess passed away in 1943 in the death of houdini on halloween remains a mystery forgotten history to everyone but stubborn ghosts i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 130,100

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, Houdini, us history, magician, harry houdini, escape artist

Id: US6f8a-84lE

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020