Edgar Allan Poe Rabies Theory

Edgar Allan Poe’s Mysterious Death Have you ever been watching a movie so scary that it gave you nightmares? The father of all scary movies, Edgar Allan Poe, was a very mysterious man even at his death. Poe wrote very many mysterious and spooky stories that set the standard for the horror genre as we know it today. It seems almost fitting that even Poe’s real life was mysterious, as nobody know for sure how he actually died. The cause of Poe’s death is still widely debated today. Poe died of encephalitic rabies because of the likeness of Poe’s symptoms and those caused by rabies, Dr.Benitez backs his rabies theory up with irrefutable scientific evidence, also Pollin and Benedetto try to disprove the scientific evidence provided by Dr.Benitez with false information that portrays them as unreliable sources. Poe’s symptoms were very similar to those of rabies. Benitez says that Poe refused alcohol and could barely drink water: “Rabies victims frequently exhibit hydrophobia, or fear of water, because it is painful to swallow” (“Poe’s Death” 187). This statement by Benitez shows that he was hydrophobic and was not drinking anything. Also, Dr. Henry Wilde said Poe “had all of the features encephalitic rabies,” so the symptoms of encephalitis

Benitez backs his rabies theory up with irrefutable scientific evidence, also Pollin and Benedetto try to disprove the scientific evidence provided by Dr. Benitez with false information that portrays them as unreliable sources. This all seems to point to the idea that Poe died of rabies. With all of this evidence pointing towards Poe dying of rabies, it is very likely that this was the cause of his death, but nobody can know for sure, which seems fitting for the man who is responsible for every fright a scary movie will ever give you. This is why he is widely regarded as the father of the horror