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Why Edgar Allan Poe Died From Rabies Analysis

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Edgar Allan Poe was a great but tortured poet that had a terrible life. He also had a terrible and mysterious death. An opinion on how Poe died was from encephalitic rabies. The evidence is from letters sent to a collage supporting the theory on how he died. How he could have died from it, is because the symptoms can stay in your body without showing symptoms.
The reasons people believe Poe died from rabies is because in one of the letters Dr. Benitez says “Poe refused alcohol and could drink water only with great difficulty, rabies victims exhibit hydrophobia”. If Poe had been drinking he would have taken the alcohol, this shows he may have had something else. Another thing that Dr. Benitez said was “there was no evidence of a bite but some rabies victims don’t remember being bitten”. This shows that he could have been bitten a long time ago and couldn’t remember. The letter also says” I suggest Poe got rabies from his cat” if this is true it would make sense because when he left his cat he started to get sick.
The reason people think Poe did from rabies is because the evidence makes sense. In the letter Dr. Snodgrass said “on leaving Richmond Poe already had a fever.”. this tells us that he was sick so he couldn’t have died from alcoholism. Also the letter says “Baltimore newspapers gave the idea of death from a congestion …show more content…

It says “there’s many ways he could have got rabies; at that time period they were many people getting it from bats”. He could have gotten rabies anywhere, maybe even on the way to Baltimore. Also, Dr. Benitez says “Poe refused alcohol in the hospital when they tried to give it to him and could only drink water with difficulty”. If Poe was drunk, he would have taken the drink, and also, rabies victims are afraid of water. Dr. Jerome also says “the writer was so sensitive to alcohol that a glass of wine would make him ill”. So Poe knew if he did drink he would get sick so why would he

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