Even in death, Edgar Allan Poe remains a mystery

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This week's question: What killed Edgar Allan Poe?

Oct. 7 marks the 166th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's death. How he died, however, remains a mystery.

On Oct. 3, 1849, the poet was found lying in the gutter outside of a Baltimore pub. The pub also served as a polling place for local elections, and people were streaming in and out past the collapsed literary legend, without any idea who he was.

Poe was incoherent, unable to move and wearing someone else's dirty clothes. The last time he'd been seen was a week earlier in Richmond, Va., on his way to Philadelphia.

Something led him off his path to Baltimore, however — and what it was may never be known.

A typesetter for The Baltimore Sun recognized Poe in the gutter. He was once a famous face in town, having lived there for several years a decade before. The typesetter, at Poe's rambling request, wrote to a local magazine editor for assistance.

There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan's 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, he is in need of immediate assistance.

After being rescued from the gutter, Poe spent four days in a delirious haze, wracked by hallucinations. He was unable to explain how he'd come to Baltimore, or what had happened to his belongings.

In his last hours, he called out for "Reynolds" — no such person has even been identified. On the fourth day, Oct. 7, Poe died.

Poe's death certificate lists the cause of death as swelling of the brain — phrenitis — but many scholars have not been content with that explanation. While "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other eerie tales from Poe continue to delight readers, some fans keep circling around the morbid question of his death.

One theory holds that Poe was caught up in a voting scheme. In the 19th century, men would be kidnapped and forced to vote multiple times in disguise in a practice known as cooping. That would explain Poe's disheveled clothing and his resting place outside the polling station. Other theories of his death include a street mugging, murder — or even rabies.

Dr. R. Michael Benitez put forth the rabies theories 20 years ago after reviewing the notes of the doctor who attended to Poe in his last days. At first, Benitez didn't know he was reviewing Poe's file, he thought he was simply reviewing the symptoms of an anonymous patient — "a writer from Richmond."

According to the Smithsonian Magazine, Benitez connected the patient's symptoms — delirium, hallucinations, rapid pulse — with rabies before he realized who he was studying: Edgar Allan Poe.

Without DNA evidence and an examination of Poe's body, Benitez's theory is impossible to confirm.

So what about the body?

Poe was buried in an unmarked grave in Baltimore. It took another 26 years for the city to decide to honor its local literary legend with a proper funeral. (They've now fully embraced him; see their NFL team, The Ravens, for proof.)

Workers dug up the coffin to move Poe's remains to a new location, but decomposition had left little to move. What the workers did find, however, led to still another theory of Poe's death.

One worker remarked on "a mass rolling around inside" Poe's skull, according to the Smithsonian. It could not have been his brain, which would have decomposed immediately, but it could have been a calcified brain tumor.

A brain tumor could explain Poe's erratic behavior and final decline, but again, it's still just a theory.

Poe's poetry and mystery stories continue to be widely read, and modern-day visitors to Baltimore can visit the writer's grave and the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum.

Fittingly, his grave comes with another mystery entirely: For more than half a century, an unknown person placed three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at the grave every Jan. 19 — Poe's birthday.

In 2010, however, the Poe Toaster did not show up. Poe fans have kept watch in the years since, but the cognac and rose have not appeared again.

What happened to the generous graveside visitor — and to Poe himself — remains unknown.

Chris Semtner, curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond, Va., told the Smithsonian: "Maybe it's fitting that since he invented the detective story, he left us with a real-life mystery."