The Book of Lists

16 CASES OF PEOPLE KILLED BY GOD

Transgression: Violence, corruption and generalised wickedness.

Method of execution: Flood.

Transgression: Widespread wickedness and lack of respect for the deity.

Method of execution: Rain of fire and brimstone.

Transgression: Looked back.

Method of execution: Turned into a pillar of salt.

Transgression: Wickedness.

Method of execution: Unknown.

Transgression: Refused to make love to his brother Er’s widow.

Method of execution: Unknown.

Transgression: Egypt was cruel to the Jews.

Method of execution: Unknown.

Transgression: Pursued the Jews.

Method of execution: Drowned.

Transgression: Offered strange fire.

Method of execution: Fire.

Transgression: Rejected authority of Moses and started own congregation.

Method of execution: Swallowed by earth.

Transgression: Supported Korah.

Method of execution: Fire.

Transgression: Murmured against Moses and his brother Aaron following execution of Korah and his supporters.

Method of execution: Plague.

Transgression: Fought the Israelites.

Method of execution: Hailstones.

Transgression: Touched the ark of God after oxen shook it while pulling it on a cart.

Method of execution: Unknown.

Transgression: King David ordered a census of the population.

Method of execution: Plague.

Transgression: Tried to capture Elijah the Tishbite.

Method of execution: Fire.

Transgression: Land fraud.

Method of execution: Unknown.

24 STRANGE DEATHS

Pat Burke of St Louis, Missouri, took his first bath in 20 years on August 23, 1903. It killed him. Burke was the second victim of cleanliness in a week at the city hospital, and the third in its history. The first was Billy O’Rourke, who had been bathed on the previous Tuesday. Both men had been scrubbed with a broom.

Li Po (d. 762AD), the great Chinese poet and drunkard, often spouted verses he was too intoxicated to write down. His admirer Emperor Ming Huang served as his secretary and jotted down the poems. Li Po was given a pension that included the right to free drinks whenever he travelled. One well-tanked night he took a boat excursion on a river. Seeing the reflection of the moon on the water, he tried to kiss it, fell overboard and drowned. Some scholars believed he actually died of cirrhosis.

Mr Raymond Priestley of Melbourne, Australia, was playing snooker in a garage with a friend when he met his doom. He had climbed onto a crossbeam in the ceiling to attempt a trick shot and was hanging upside down by his legs when he slipped. He crashed down on the concrete floor headfirst and later died from brain damage.

Hans Steininger was known for having the longest beard in the world. One day in September 1567, while he was climbing the staircase leading to the council chamber of Brunn in Austria, Steininger stepped on his beard, lost his balance, fell down the stairs and died.

On February 4, 1982, 27-year-old David M. Grundman fired two shot-gun blasts at a giant saguaro cactus in the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona. Unfortunately for Grundman, his shots caused a 23-ft section of the cactus to fall on him and he was crushed to death.

Clement L. Vallandigham was a highly controversial Ohio politician who engendered much hostility by supporting the South during the Civil War. Convicted of treason, he was banished to the Confederacy. Back in Ohio after the war, Vallandigham became an extremely successful lawyer, who rarely lost a case. In 1871 he took on the defence of Thomas McGehan, a local troublemaker who was accused of shooting Tom Myers to death during a barroom brawl. Vallandigham contended that Myers had actually shot himself, attempting to draw his pistol from his pocket while trying to rise from a kneeling position.

On the evening of June 16, Vallandigham was conferring in his hotel room with fellow defence lawyers when he decided to show them how he would demonstrate his theory to the jury the next day. Earlier in the day, he had placed two pistols on the bureau, one empty and one loaded. Grabbing the loaded one by mistake, Vallandigham put it in his trouser pocket. Then he slowly pulled the pistol back out and cocked it.

‘There, that’s the way Myers held it,’ he said, and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out and Vallandigham explained, ‘My God, I’ve shot myself!’ He died 12 hours later. Vallandigham’s client, Thomas McGehan, was subsequently acquitted and released from custody.

Keith Relf, who had gained fame as the lead singer of The Yardbirds, a 1960s blues-rock group, was found dead at his home in London on May 14, 1976. The cause of death was an electric shock received while playing his guitar. Relf was 33 years old.

It is almost impossible to die of an overdose of water, but Tina Christopherson managed to do it. The 29-year-old Florida woman, who had an IQ of 189, became obsessed with the idea that she suffered from stomach cancer, a disease which had killed her mother. In an attempt to cleanse her body, Christopherson went on periodic water fasts, during which she ate no food but drank up to four gallons of water a day. By February 17, 1977, she had consumed so much water that her kidneys were overwhelmed and the excess fluid drained into her lungs. She died of internal drowning, otherwise known as ‘water intoxication’.

William Shortis, a rent collector in Liverpool, England, and his wife, Emily Ann, had not been seen for several days. Worried friends and a policeman entered the house on August 13, 1903, and were horrified to discover William, dazed and dying, at the foot of the staircase pinned to the floor underneath the body of his 224-lb wife. A coroner’s jury concluded that the elderly couple had been walking up the stairs when Emily Ann fell backwards, carrying her husband with her, but William remained in his unfortunate position for three days, too seriously injured to be able to extricate himself.

In August 1981 11-year-old Simon Longhurst of Wigan, England, attended a Sunday afternoon junior disco session where, along with other youngsters, he performed the ‘head shake’, a New Wave dance in which the head is shaken violently as the music gets faster and faster. The following day, young Simon began suffering headaches and soon a blood clot developed. Three weeks later he died of acute swelling of the brain. The coroner ruled it ‘death by misadventure’.

American revolutionary patriot James Otis often mentioned to friends and relatives that, as long as one had to die, he hoped that his death would come from a bolt of lightning. On May 23, 1783, the 58-year-old Otis was leaning against a doorpost in a house in Andover, Massachusetts, when a lightning bolt struck the chimney, ripped through the frame house and hit the doorpost. Otis was killed instantly.

On April 15, 1982, 26-year-old Michael Scaglione was playing golf with friends at the City Park West Municipal Golf Course in New Orleans. After making a bad shot on the thirteenth hole, Scaglione became angry with himself and threw his club against a golf cart. When the club broke, the club head rebounded and stabbed Scaglione in the throat, severing his jugular vein. Scaglione staggered back and pulled the metal piece from his neck. Had he not done so, he might have lived, since the club head could have reduced the rapid flow of blood.

In 1924 British newspapers reported the bizarre case of a man who apparently committed suicide while asleep. Thornton Jones, a lawyer, woke up to discover that he had slit his own throat. Motioning to his wife for a paper and pencil, Jones wrote, ‘I dreamt that I had done it. I awoke to find it true.’ He died 80 minutes later.

Bobby Leach was a colourful character who first became famous in 1911, when he went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He continued to perform dangerous exploits, including parachuting over the falls from an airplane. In April 1926 Leach was walking down a street in Christchurch, New Zealand, when he slipped on a piece of orange peel and broke his leg so badly that it had to be amputated. Complications developed and he died.

Seventy-nine-year-old cornetist and music professor Nicolas Coviello had had an illustrious career, having performed before Queen Victoria, Edward VII and other dignitaries. Realising that his life was nearing its end, Coviello decided to travel from London to Saskatchewan to pay a final visit to his son. On the way, he stopped in New York City to bid farewell to his nephews, Peter, Dominic and Daniel Coviello. On June 13, 1926, the young men took their famous uncle to Coney Island to give him a taste of America. The elder Coviello enjoyed himself but seemed irritated by the blare of jazz bands. Finally he could take it no longer. ‘That isn’t music,’ he complained and he fell to the boardwalk. He was pronounced dead a few minutes later. Cause of death was ‘a strain on the heart’.

On August 1, 1985, lifeguards of the New Orleans recreation department threw a party to celebrate their first drowning-free season in memory. Although four lifeguards were on duty at the party and more than half the 200 party-goers were lifeguards, when the party ended, one of the guests, Jerome Moody, 31, was found dead on the bottom of the recreation department pool.

Thirty-five-year-old Richard Fresquez of Austin, Texas, became drunk on the night of May 7, 1983. He tripped on a garden hose, became tangled in it and strangled to death while trying to break free.

On April 23, 1991, Yooket Paen, 57, of Anghton, Thailand, slipped in some mud, grabbed a live wire and was electrocuted. Later that day, her 52-year-old sister, Yooket Pan, was showing some neighbours how the accident happened when she slipped, grabbed the same live wire and was also electrocuted.

In 1991 Bulgarian environmental artist Christo erected 1,760 yellow umbrellas along Southern California’s Tejon Pass and another 1,340 blue umbrellas in Ibaraki Prefecture north of Tokyo. Each of the umbrellas weighed 48 lb. On October 26, Lori Jean Keevil-Mathews, a 30-year-old insurance agent, drove out to Interstate 5 to view the California umbrellas. Shortly after Keevil-Mathews and her husband got out of their car, a huge gust of wind tore one of the umbrellas loose from its steel screw anchors and blew it straight at Keevil-Mathews, crushing her against a boulder. Christo immediately ordered the dismantling of all the umbrellas in both countries. However, on October 30, another umbrella-related death occurred when 57-year-old crane operator Wasaaki Nakaruma was electrocuted by a power line in Japan as he prepared to take down one of the umbrellas.

Michael Anderson Godwin was convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair, but in 1983 his sentence was changed to life in prison. On March 5, 1989, Godwin, 28 years old, was trying to fix a pair of earphones connected to the television set in his cell at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. While sitting on a steel toilet, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nitaro Ito, 41, a pancake-shop operator in Higashiosaka City, Japan, concluded that he needed an extra edge in his 1979 campaign for the House of Representatives. He decided to stage an attack on himself and then draw sympathy by campaigning from a hospital bed. Ito’s scheme was to have an employee, Kazuhiko Matsumo, punch him in the face on the night of September 17, after which Ito would stab himself in the leg. After Matsumo had carried out of his part of the plan, Ito stabbed his right thigh. Unfortunately, he cut an artery and bled to death before he could reach his home, 50m. away.

Ford Motor Company’s casting plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, employed a one-ton robot to fetch parts from a storage rack. When the robot malfunctioned on January 25, 1979, 25-year-old Robert Williams was asked to climb up on the rack and get the parts. While he was performing the task, the robot suddenly reactivated and hit Williams in the head with its arms. Williams died instantly. Four years later a jury ordered Unit Handling Systems, the manufacturer of the robot, to pay Williams’ family $10 million. Williams is believed to have been the first person killed by a robot.

Ivan McGuire was an experienced parachutist who spent the afternoon of April 2, 1988, in Louisburg, North Carolina, videotaping parachuting students as they jumped and jumping with them. On his third trip up, McGuire dropped from the airplane and began filming the instructor and student who followed him a second later. McGuire reached back and discovered that he had forgotten to put on his parachute. His videotape, which was shown on the news in nearby Raleigh, recorded McGuire’s final words: ‘Uh-oh.’

Betty Stobbs, 67, put a bale of hay on her bike and went out to feed the sheep at her family farm in Stanhope, England, on January 26, 1999. Forty sheep rushed towards her and began jumping up on the bike to reach the hay, knocking Stobbs into the 100-ft deep Ashes Quarry. Alan Renfry witnessed the incident from his home and was convinced that the sheep were responsible for Stobbs’ death.

10 CELEBRATED PEOPLE WHO READ THEIR OWN OBITUARIES

Her husband walked out on her and joined the British army. To find him, Hannah Snell also enlisted, posing as a man. During surgery her true sex was discovered. She became a celebrity, and once out of the army she performed in public houses as the Female Warrior. On December 10, 1779, when she was 56, she opened a copy of the Gentlemen’s Magazine and read her own obituary, which informed her that she had died on a Warwickshire heathland. Perhaps she was superstitious, because reading her death notice snapped something in her mind. Her mental health slowly deteriorated, and in 1789 she was placed in London’s Bethlehem Hospital, where she remained insane until she expired in 1792.

The great American frontiersman had retired and settled down in Missouri. In 1818 an American newspaper in the eastern US trumpeted the news that the renowned hunter had been found dead near a deer lick, kneeling behind a tree stump, his rifle resting on the stump, a fallen deer a hundred yards away. The obituary was picked up across the nation. Daniel read it and laughed. Although he could still trap, he was too old and weak to hunt, and could no longer hit a deer even close up. Two years later, aged 86, Boone finally did die. His best-known obituary was seven stanzas devoted to him in Lord Byron’s Don Juan.

She was one of the most beautiful and sexual women in all history. Her name was Jane Digby. At 17 she married Lord Ellenborough, Great Britain’s lord of the privy seal, then left him to run off with an Austrian prince. During her colourful career she was the mistress of novelist Honoré de Balzac, King Ludwig of Bavaria and Ludwig’s son, King Otto of Greece. Her last marriage of 26 years was to Sheik Medjuel, an erudite Bedouin, head of the Mezrab tribe in the Syrian desert. Returning from a desert trip with Medjuel, the 66-year-old Lady Ellenborough learned that she was dead. Her obituary appeared prominently in La Revue Britannique, published in Paris in March 1873. It began: ‘A noble lady who had made a great use — or abuse — of marriage has died recently. Lady Ellenborough, some 30 years ago, left her first husband to run off with Count von Schwarzenberg. She retired to Italy, where she married six consecutive times.’ The obituary, reprinted throughout Europe, called her last husband ‘a camel driver’. The next issue of the publication carried a eulogy of Lady Ellenborough written by her friend Isabel Burton, the pompous and snobbish wife of Burton of Arabia. Mrs Burton claimed she had been authorised to publish the story of Lady Ellenborough’s life, based on dictated notes. Appalled, Lady Ellenborough vehemently wrote to the press denying her death — and having dictated an ‘authorised’ book to Mrs Burton. Lady Ellenborough outlived her obituary by eight full years, dying of dysentery in August 1881.

In March 1873 ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, legendary sheriff and city marshal in the Midwest and a constant reader of Missouri’s leading newspaper, the Democrat, picked up a copy and learned that he was a corpse. Hickok read: ‘The Texan who corralled the untamed William did so because he lost his brother by Bill’s quickness on the trigger.’ Unsettled by his supposed demise, Wild Bill took pen in hand and wrote a letter to the editor: ‘Wishing to correct an error in your paper of the 12th, I will state that no Texan has, nor ever will, “corral William”. I wish to correct your statement on account of my people. Yours as ever, J.B. Hickok.’ Delighted, the editor of the Democrat printed Hickok’s letter and added an editorial: ‘We take much pleasure in laying Mr Hickok’s statement before the readers of the Democrat, most of whom will be glad to read from his pen that he is “still on the deck”. But in case you should go off suddenly, William, by writing us the particulars we will give you just as fine an obituary notice as we can get up, though we trust that sad pleasure may be deferred for years.’ Three years later Hickok was murdered while playing poker.

As the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, a moody yet idealistic Swede, had become a millionaire. When Nobel’s older brother, Ludwig, died of heart trouble on April 12, 1888, a leading French newspaper misread the report and ran an obituary of Alfred Nobel, calling him ‘a merchant of death’. Upon seeing the obituary, Nobel was stunned, not by the premature announcement of his passing but by the realisation that in the end he would be considered nothing more than a merchant of death. The printed summary of his life reflected none of his hopes for humanity, his love of his fellow beings, his generosity. The need to repair this false picture was one of several factors that led him to establish, in his will, the Nobel Prize awards to be given to those who did the most in advancing the causes of peace, literature and the sciences.

At 80, the great American was ailing and knew that death was near. From his sickbed, he told a friend that he would be happier if he had ‘the chance to see what sort of lines’ would be written about him after he was dead. The friend relayed this wish to the editor of the Evening Sun of New York City. On March 24, 1891, Barnum opened his copy of the Evening Sun and read: ‘Great and Only Barnum. He Wanted to Read His Obituary; Here It Is.’ According to the preface, ‘Mr Barnum has had almost everything in this life, including the woolly horse and Jenny Lind, and there is no reason why he should not have the last pleasure which he asks for. So here is the great showman’s life, briefly and simply told, as it would have appeared in the Evening Sun had fate taken our Great and Only from us.’ There followed four columns of Barnum’s obituary, illustrated by woodcuts of him at his present age, of him at 41, of his mother, of his deceased first wife Charity, and of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind. Two weeks later, Barnum was dead.

This police commissioner’s son, born in Galicia, raised in Austria, was fascinated by cruelty and loved pain and degradation. His first mistress, Anna von Kottowitz, birched him regularly and enjoyed lovers that Sacher-Masoch found for her. His second mistress, Fanny Pistor, signed a contract with him agreeing to wear furs when she beat him daily. She fulfilled the contract and treated him as a servant. He had become a famous writer when he met and married a woman named Wanda. She thrashed him with a nail-studded whip every day of their 15-year marriage and made him perform as her slave. After she ran off, Sacher-Masoch married a simple German woman named Hulda Meister. By now he was slipping into insanity and he tried to strangle her. In 1895 she had him secretly committed to an asylum in Mannheim and announced to the world that he had died. The press published obituaries praising his talent. Undoubtedly, in lucid moments, he read some of his death notices. He finally did die 10 years later in 1905. Because of Sacher-Masoch’s life, psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the word ‘masochism’.

In 1897 the noted American author and humorist was in seclusion, grieving over a death in his family, when he learned that he, too, had been declared dead. A sensational American newspaper had headlined his end, stating that he had died impoverished in London. A national syndicate sent a reporter to Mark Twain’s home to confirm the news. Twain himself appeared before the bug-eyed reporter and issued an official statement: ‘James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The reports of my illness grew out of his illness. The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ Twain finally lived up to his premature obituaries in 1910.

Once in the 1930s, while the English philosopher was visiting Beijing, he became very ill. Japanese reporters in the city constantly tried to see Russell, but were always denied access to him. The journalists decided he must be dead and notified their newspapers of his demise. Word of his death went around the world. Wrote Russell, ‘It provided me with the pleasure of reading my obituary notices, which I had always desired without expecting my wishes to be fulfilled. One missionary paper had an obituary notice of one sentence: ‘Missionaries may be pardoned for heaving a sigh of relief at the news of Mr Bertrand Russell’s death.’ All this inspired Russell to compose his own obituary in 1937 for The Times of London. He wrote of himself: ‘His life, for all its waywardness, had a certain anachronistic consistency, reminiscent of the aristocratic rebels of the early nineteenth century… He was the last survivor of a dead epoch.’

He told The Times to run it in 1962, the year in which he expected to die. The Times did not need it until 1970.

The former auto-racing driver turned fighter pilot emerged from WWI as America’s leading ace, with 26 confirmed kills. In peacetime he was an executive in the automobile and aviation industries. With the onset of WWII, Rickenbacker volunteered to carry out missions for the US War Dept. In October 1942, on an inspection tour, Rickenbacker’s B-17 went down somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. An intensive air search of the area was made. There was no sign of survivors. Newspapers across the US declared Rickenbacker dead. The following month, on Friday 13 November, there were new headlines. Rickenbacker and seven others were spotted alive in the Pacific. They had survived on a raft for 23 days. Waiting for Rickenbacker when he returned home was a pile of his obituaries. One, in the New York Daily News, was a cartoon showing a black wreath floating on water, with the caption ‘So Long, Eddie’. Another, in the New York Journal, bore the headline ‘End of the Roaring Road?’ Grinning, Rickenbacker scrawled across it, ‘Hell, no!’

Note: Those ten are the editor’s favourite cases, but there have been numerous other celebrated persons who read of their deaths while they were alive, among them US President Thomas Jefferson, magician Harry Houdini, dancer Josephine Baker, singer Jeanette MacDonald, novelist Ernest Hemingway and foreign correspondent Edgar Snow. Also, there have been many famous people who, if they did not read about their deaths, heard rumours or announcements that they had gone to the Great Beyond. The modern living dead have included singer Paul McCartney, vague hints of whose demise were supposedly traced to several Beatles records; actress Bette Davis, whose attorney told her that word of her death was spreading throughout New York, to which Miss Davis replied, ‘With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn’t consider it’; and India’s elderly political dissenter J.P. Narayan, who heard Prime Minister Morarji Desai mistakenly deliver a eulogy over his still-warm body in April 1979.

9 PEOPLE WHO DIED LAUGHING

Calchas, the wisest soothsayer of Greece during the Trojan War, advised the construction of the notorious wooden horse. One day he was planting grapevines when a fellow soothsayer wandered by and foretold that Calchas would never drink the wine produced from the grapes. After the grapes ripened, wine was made from them and Calchas invited the soothsayer to share it with him. As Calchas held a cup of the wine in his hand, the soothsayer repeated the prophecy. This incited such a fit of laughter in Calchas that he choked and died. Another version of Calchas’ death states that he died of grief after losing a soothsaying match in which he failed to predict correctly the number of piglets that a pig was about to give birth to.

It is said that Zeuxis was laughing at a painting of an old woman that he had just completed when his breathing failed and he choked to death.

Chrysippus is said to have died from a fit of laughter on seeing a donkey eat some figs.

This writer of comedies became so engulfed in laughter over a jest he had made that he died laughing.

Aretino was laughing at a bawdy story being told to him by his sister when he fell backwards in his chair and died of apoplexy.

Best-known for his translation into English of Rabelais’ Gargantua, the eccentric Sir Thomas Urquhart is said to have died laughing upon hearing of the restoration to the throne of Charles II.

MRS FITZHERBERT (English widow, d. 1782)

On a Wednesday evening in April 1782, Mrs Fitzherbert of Northamptonshire went to Drury Lane Theatre with friends to see The Beggar’s Opera. When the popular actor Mr Bannister made his first appearance, dressed outlandishly in the role of ‘Polly’, the entire audience was thrown into uproarious laughter. Unfortunately, Mrs Fitzherbert was unable to suppress the laugh that seized her, and she was forced to leave the theatre before the end of the second act. As the Gentleman’s Magazine reported the following week: ‘Not being able to banish the figure from her memory, she was thrown into hysterics, which continued without intermission until she expired on Friday morning.’

Mr and Mrs Mitchell of Brockley Green, Fairstead Estate, King’s Lynn, were watching their favourite TV comedy, The Goodies. During a scene about a new type of self-defence called ‘Ecky Thump’, Mr Mitchell was seized by uncontrolled laughter. After half an hour of unrestrained mirth, he suffered a heart attack and died. His wife, Nessie, wrote to The Goodies thanking them for making her husband’s last moments so happy.

An audiologist who specialised in developing hearing aids for underdeveloped countries, Bentzen went to see the film A Fish Called Wanda. During a scene featuring John Cleese, Bentzen began laughing so hard that his heartbeat accelerated to a rate of between 250 and 500 beats a minute and he was seized by a heart attack and died.

5 PEOPLE WHO DIED PLAYING CARDS

Mr Bennett and his wife, Myrtle, lived in a fashionable apartment in Kansas City. One unfortunate Sunday afternoon in the autumn of 1929, the Bennetts sat down with their neighbours, the Hoffmans, to play a friendly game of bridge. Mrs Hoffman later explained, ‘As the game went on, the Bennetts’ criticisms of each other grew more caustic.’ Finally Bennett dealt and bid one spade on a hand that better deserved a pass. Mr Hoffman overcalled with two diamonds, and Mrs Bennett, overeager for a contract, jumped to four spades. In the play of the hand, Bennett was set one. His wife taunted him and they began arguing. John reached across the table and slapped Myrtle, whereupon she told him he was a bum, thus goading him further. John threatened to leave and Myrtle suggested that the Hoffmans depart as well. But before they could go, Myrtle ran into her mother’s bedroom, grabbed the family automatic, dashed back and shot her husband twice, killing him. Interestingly, if Bennett had established his club suit before drawing trumps, he might have survived the evening.

When ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok entered Deadwood, South Dakota, in June of 1876, he had a premonition that he would never leave the gulch alive. On August 2 he was playing poker with three friends in a saloon, laughing and having a good time. Normally Hickok sat with his back to the wall, but that afternoon Charlie Rich had taken Bill’s seat to tease him and had refused to give it up. Jack McCall, whom Hickok had defeated at poker earlier that day, entered the saloon, drew a .45-calibre Colt and shot Wild Bill Hickok through the back of the head, killing him instantly. Wild Bill, who was 39 years old, was holding two pairs, aces and eights, a hand that has since been known as ‘the dead man’s hand’. He died with a smile on his face.

Jolson suffered a heart attack while playing gin rummy with friends in his room in San Francisco’s St Francis Hotel on the night of October 23, 1950. He was 64 years old.

Keaton was stricken by a seizure late in the afternoon of January 31, 1966, while playing poker at his home in Hollywood. He expired the following morning at the age of 70.

The man who fixed the 1919 World Series was playing poker in the suite Hump McManus occupied at the Park Central Hotel in New York City when he was shot in the stomach. Rothstein, who owed McManus $320,000 from a previous poker game, stumbled out of the building and was rushed to a hospital, where he refused to name the gunman before he died on November 4, 1928.

17 HEALTH EXPERTS AND HOW THEY DIED

The 6 ft 7 in. Berger successfully reduced his weight from 420 to 210 lb. He described his techniques in such bestsellers as The Southampton Diet (1984) and Dr Berger’s Immune Power Diet (1986). Berger claimed that his diet would boost the immune system and promote longevity. He died in his New York City apartment from a heart attack brought on by cocaine abuse and obesity: at the time of his death he weighed 365 lb.

A clergyman and temperance leader, Graham believed that good health could be achieved through a strict regime which included cold showers, daily exercise and a vegetarian diet. In 1847 he spoke to an audience in Boston and triggered a near riot by butchers and bakers who were angered by his advocacy of vegetarianism and homemade bread. He was deeply shaken by the attack and his health began to decline. Treatment with stimulants, mineral water and tepid baths proved to be of no lasting help, and he died broken in body and spirit. He is remembered today chiefly for his creation of the Graham cracker, though the present-day commercial product — containing bleached flour, sugar and preservatives — would have horrified him.

Through the application of scientific methods of muscle development, Sandow transformed himself from a weak youth into the ‘world’s strongest man’, as showbusiness promoter Florenz Ziegfeld billed him at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1911 Sandow was appointed professor of physical culture to King George V. However, Sandow’s primary concern was to convince the average man that anyone could achieve strength and vigour by exercising for a little as 20 minutes a day. The strong man pushed himself beyond even his immense capacities when, without any assistance, he lifted a car out of a ditch after an accident. He suffered a severe strain and died soon afterward from a burst blood vessel in the brain. However, some believe that he actually died of syphilis.

Trained as a pharmacist, Coué became interested in hypnotism and developed a health treatment based on autosuggestion. He told his patients that their health would improve dramatically if, morning and evening, they would repeat faithfully: ‘Every day and in every way, I am becoming better and better.’ Prior to WWI, an estimated 40,000 patients flocked to his clinic each year and Coué claimed a 97% success rate. Coué kept up a demanding schedule. After one of his lecture tours he returned to his home in Nancy, France, and complained of exhaustion. He died there of heart failure.

Pritikin was diagnosed with heart disease in his mid-40s. Although he did not have a background in medicine, he spent the next 20 years researching diet and nutrition. He developed a low-fat, low-cholesterol and high-fibre diet that he credited with reversing his heart disease. In 1976 he opened the Pritikin Longevity Center in California to spread the word. He also published eight books on diet and exercise. His programme gained credibility in 1984 when the National Institutes of Health concluded that lowering cholesterol reduced the risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, at the same time, Pritikin developed leukaemia. The chemotherapy that he underwent to fight the cancer brought about anaemia, kidney failure and severe pain. On February 21, 1985, Pritikin committed suicide in his hospital bed by slashing his wrists with a razor. The leukaemia had probably been caused by a dubious medical technique that Pritikin underwent in 1957. His doctor had prescribed a series of X-ray treatments to destroy a fungal infection causing a skin rash. Afterwards, Pritikin was diagnosed with an elevated white blood cell count, a frequent precursor to leukaemia.

‘You are what you eat,’ claimed Davis, the well-known American nutritionist who advocated a natural diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables along with large doses of vitamins. When she was diagnosed as having bone cancer at the age of 69, her first reaction was disbelief. ‘I thought this was for people who drink soft drinks, who eat white bread, who eat refined sugar, and so on,’ she said. Eventually she came to accept her illness as a delayed reaction to the ‘junk food’ eating habits she had acquired in college and which had lasted until the 1950s. Her hope was that those who had faith in her work would not be disheartened by her fatal illness.

One of the first exponents of proper nutrition, Bircher-Brenner advocated the ingestion of raw fruits and vegetables — ‘living’ food. He also believed that a patient’s mind played an important role in the cause of illness and that psychological as well as physical treatment was necessary to cure disease. A premature baby, Bircher-Brenner had been born with a weak heart which doctors said would prevent him from ever living a normal life. Through vigorous physical exercise and careful diet he had attained remarkable health as an adult, but the coronary weakness was not entirely overcome. On January 24, 1939, he died from a ruptured heart vessel.

Through extensive longevity research the Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist concluded that the human body was meant to last 100 to 150 years. He became known particularly for his ‘Sour Milk Cure’, in which he advocated the consumption of yogurt to cleanse the large intestine. In addition, he discovered a bacterium (found only in the intestine of dogs) which he believed could further retard the aging process — and he proceeded to inoculate himself with the microbe. Shortly before his death from heart disease, Metchnikoff detailed in his diary the reasons for his untimely demise: ‘intense and precocious activities, fretful character, nervous temperament, and tardy start on a sensible regime’.

On April 17, 2003, the famous ‘low-carb diet doctor’, Dr Atkins, died after falling on an icy street and hitting his head. It was in 1972 that Atkins — who had a history of heart disease — published the bestselling Dr Atkins’ Diet Revolution, which advocated consuming meat, eggs and cheese while shunning all carbohydrates, including wheat bread, all rice and fruits. His books sold more than 15 million copies and became the subject of heated debate: other respected dieticians advise the opposite approach — fruit, fresh vegetables and a largely vegetarian diet. A group of doctors severely critical of Atkins’ plan maintain that his programme leads to weight gain and heart disease. Atkins supporters insist that his death was the result of hospitalisation, where, in a coma, he gained 60 lb in fluid retention. Upon entering the hospital, the 6-ft Atkins weighted 195 lb — overweight by the standards of the Center For Heart Disease. He died eight days later at the formidable weight of 265 lb. Defenders of the diet vigorously claim the cause was bloating. His books continue to sell.

The head of a multimillion-dollar publishing business, Rodale promulgated his belief in ‘organic food’ (food free from chemicals and artificial additives) supplemented by natural vitamins through his popular magazines Organic Gardening and Prevention. He was at the height of his fame when he appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on June 9, 1971. After describing the dangers of milk, wheat and sugar, Rodale proceeded to say, ‘I’m so healthy that I expect to live on and on.’ Shortly after the conclusion of the interview, Rodale slumped in his chair, the victim of a fatal heart attack.

As a young seminary student, Kneipp cured himself of an attack of nervous prostration through hydrotherapy. When he became a priest, he continued his cold-water cures. Eventually he abandoned his priestly duties altogether to give advice to as many as 500 patients a day. The empress of Austria and Pope Leo XIII were among those who consulted him. Kneipp believed that the application of cold water — plus exercise, fresh air, sunshine, and walking barefoot over grass and through snow — could cure virtually any mental or physical disorder. An inflammation of his lungs, which had been weak since childhood, resulted in his death.

Mesmer believed that a person became ill when his ‘animal magnetism’ was out of balance. To correct this condition, the Viennese doctor made use of magnets and held séance-like therapeutic sessions for his patients. Hounded out of Vienna on charges of practising magic, Mesmer moved to Paris, where a royal commission (whose members included Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier) concluded that Mesmer’s ‘cures’ were due solely to his patients’ imaginations. Mesmer was convinced that he would die in his eighty-first year, as a Gypsy woman had foretold. Her prediction came true two months before his eighty-first birthday, when he succumbed to an extremely painful bladder condition that had troubled him for years.

This country doctor became an overnight sensation in 1958 with the publication of Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health. Part of his appeal derived from the simplicity of his remedies. For example, he suggested that one could stay healthy through a daily dose of two teaspoons each of honey and apple cider vinegar in a glass of water. Jarvis had many supporters, in spite of a Harvard professor’s comment that ‘This claptrap is strictly for those gullible birds stung by the honey bee.’ Jarvis died in a nursing home in Vermont after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage.

Billing himself as a kinestherapist, Macfadden ran a chain of health food restaurants and sanitariums that pushed his programme of exercise, fresh air, personal hygiene and wholesome diet. He also published the popular but controversial magazine Physical Culture, which featured photos of men and women posing nearly naked — considered obscene by some in the early twentieth century. Throughout his long life Macfadden was almost always in the news for one reason or another — his marriages, his attacks on the medical establishment, or his founding of a new religion, the Cosmotarian Fellowship. Macfadden celebrated his eighty-third birthday by parachuting 2,500 ft into the Hudson River. The master showman finally succumbed to a urinary tract blockage that he had tried unsuccessfully to combat through fasting.

A German physician at crosscurrents with the medical beliefs of his day, Hahnemann developed the system of homeopathy. Its basic tenet is that a drug that produces symptoms of illness in a healthy person will cure a sick person who exhibits those symptoms, when that drug is administered in minute doses. Hahnemann died from an inflammation of the bronchial tubes, which had plagued him for 20 years. Although he had come to terms with death (‘My earthly shell is worn out,’ he stated), his wife was less accepting of the inevitable. She kept his embalmed corpse with her for nine days before giving it up for burial.

Eddy founded the Christian Science religion after experiencing what she believed to be Christ’s method of healing. At the time, she was suffering the effects of a serious fall on the ice. She taught that healing is accomplished not by drugs or medicines but through the affirmation of spiritual truth. Although Eddy enjoyed a remarkably active old age, when her health began to fail she was convinced that it was due to Malicious Animal Magnetism engendered by her enemies. The official verdict was that she died from ‘natural causes’ after a brief bout of pneumonia. The undertaker who examined the corpse stated: ‘I do not remember having found the body of a person of such advanced age in so good a physical condition.’

The only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes (for Chemistry and Peace, not Medicine), Pauling in 1970 wrote a book arguing that large doses of vitamin C could cure the common cold. Over the years he expanded on his claims, declaring that vitamin C would extend a person’s life by decades and ward off cancer and heart disease. Pauling himself took 18,000 mg of vitamin C a day (the recommended daily allowance for adults is 60 mg). Pauling was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December of 1991. He died of complications at his ranch in Big Sur, California, two years later.

12 TIMELY DEATHS

We read so often in the newspapers about ‘untimely deaths’ that it makes one wonder if anyone ever died a ‘timely death’. Well, people have, and here are some examples.

Early astrological predictions had warned that he would be murdered on the fifth hour of September 18, AD96. As the date approached, Domitian had many of his closest attendants executed to be on the safe side. Just before midnight marked the beginning of the critical day, he became so terrified that he jumped out of bed. A few hours later he asked the time and was told by his servants (who were conspiring against him) that it was the sixth hour. Convinced that the danger had passed, Domitian went off to take a bath. On the way he was informed that his niece’s steward, Stephanus, was waiting for him in the bedroom with important news. When the emperor arrived, Stephanus handed him a list of conspirators and then suddenly stabbed him in the groin. Domitian put up a good fight, but he was overcome when four more conspirators appeared. He died as predicted, on the fifth hour of September 18, AD96.

The 83-year-old former president was suffering badly from diarrhoea, but he had hopes of lasting until July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From his sickbed, he asked, ‘This is the fourth?’ When he was informed that it was, he died peacefully.

Adams, like Jefferson, held on until July 4, 1826, before dying at the age of 90. He is reported to have said, ‘Thomas Jefferson survives… Independence forever,’ unaware that his old friend had died a few hours earlier.

While lying on his deathbed, Dr Green looked up at his own doctor and said, ‘Congestion.’ Then he took his own pulse, reported the single word, ‘Stopped,’ and died.

On May 16, 1906, Ibsen was in a coma in his bedroom, surrounded by friends and relatives. A nurse told the others in the room that the famed playwright seemed to be a little better. Without opening his eyes, Ibsen uttered one word: ‘Tvertimod’ (‘On the contrary’). He died that afternoon without speaking again.

Born in 1835, the year of Halley’s Comet, Twain often stated that he had come into the world with the comet and would go out of the world with it as well. Halley’s Comet next returned in 1910, and on April 21 of that year Twain died.

Schönberg’s lifelong fascination with numerology led to his morbid obsession with the number 13. Born in 1874 on September 13, he believed that 13 would also play a role in his death. Because the numerals seven and six add up to 13, Schönberg was convinced that his 76th year would be the decisive one. Checking the calendar for 1951, he saw to his horror that July 13 fell on a Friday. When that day came, he kept to his bed in an effort to reduce the chance of an accident. Shortly before midnight, his wife entered the bedroom to say goodnight and to reassure him that his fears had been foolish, whereupon Schönberg muttered the word ‘harmony’ and died. The time of his death was 11:47 p.m., 13 minutes before midnight on Friday July 13, in his 76th year.

Elizabeth Ryan won 19 Wimbledon tennis championships between 1914 and 1934 — a record that stood for 45 years. On July 6, 1979, the day before Billie Jean King broke her record by winning a 20th Wimbledon title, the 87-year-old Ryan became ill while in the stands at Wimbledon. She collapsed in the clubhouse and died that night.

Warren was performing in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in 1960. He had just begun the aria ‘O fatal urn of my destiny’. When he reached the word ‘fatal’, he suddenly pitched forward, dead of a heart attack.

Davies, age 67, was giving a solo rendition of the old soldiers’ song ‘Goodbye’ at the annual dinner of the Cotswold Male Voice Choir in Echington, England, on January 3, 1995. He finished with the words, ‘I wish you all a last goodbye.’ As the crowd applauded, Davies collapsed and died.

In 1936 the premier issue of Life featured a picture of newborn baby George Story under the headline ‘Life Begins’. Over the years, the magazine periodically updated readers about the ‘Life baby’, as Story married twice, had children and retired. On April 4, 2000, just days after Life had announced that it would cease publication, Story died of heart failure. The final issue of Life featured one last article about Story. The headline: ‘A Life Ends’.

In 1999 Schulz, the creator of the popular comic strip Peanuts, announced his decision to retire because of poor health. He died on February 12, 2000, the night before the last original Peanuts ran in the Sunday newspapers. The timing was ‘prophetic and magical’ said close friend and fellow cartoonist Lynn (For Better or for Worse) Johnston. ‘He made one last deadline. There’s romance in that.’

PRESERVING OUR HERITAGE — 29 STUFFED OR EMBALMED HUMANS AND ANIMALS

In 1922, while excavating in the Valley of the Kings, English archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, a king of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, who flourished about 1348BC. The mummy of the pharaoh was encased in a 6-ft coffin containing 2,448 lb of gold. Over the bandages on the king’s face was a lifelike gold mask inlaid with precious jewels. A dazzling assortment of rings, necklaces, amulets and other exquisite ornaments were found among the body wrappings. The internal organs of the king had been removed, embalmed and placed in a separate alabaster chest. The mummy, coffin and other valuables from the tomb have toured the world and are currently diplayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

This ruler of the Holy Roman Empire died in 814. Embalmed, he was dressed in his royal robes, a crown placed on his head, a sceptre placed in his hand, and thus he was propped up in a sitting position on his marble throne. His preserved body remained on that throne for 400 years. At last, in 1215, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II removed the corpse, which was found to be in excellent condition. It was buried in a gold and silver casket in the cathedral at Aix-La-Chapelle.

Spanish leader in the war against the Moors, he established the independent kingdom of Valencia. Wounded in battle in 1099 and dying, El Cid’s last wish was that his body be embalmed and then seated on his horse, Babieca, during the next battle. When the next battle came — an attack on Valencia by King Bucar of Morocco — and the Spanish were on the verge of defeat, the preserved corpse of El Cid, mounted on his horse, appeared at the head of the troops. Heartened, the Spanish troops rallied and were victorious.

When King Pedro of Castile was a young prince, he fell in love with Inés de Castro. His father, fearing political complications, trumped up a charge against Inés and had her beheaded. Pedro waited until he had become king after his father died, then had the assassins’ hearts torn out and ordered Inés’ body exhumed. Her corpse was dressed, placed on the throne and officially crowned queen. All dignitaries were forced to pay homage by kissing her hand and treating her like a living monarch. Pedro died in 1369.

This English king was deposed in 1399 and probably murdered in 1400. In 1413 Henry V had Richard’s body embalmed and put on public display in full royal regalia. Three days later Henry was the chief mourner at Richard’s second funeral, during which Richard was interred in Westminster Abbey. At one time there was a hole in the side of the tomb through which visitors could put their hands to touch the king’s head. In 1776 an enthusiastic schoolboy thrust his hand in and stole Richard’s jawbone. The boy’s descendants kept the relic until 1906, when it was finally restored to its rightful resting place.

Henry V’s queen died in 1437. Her grandson, Henry VII, made major alterations to Westminster Abbey, which involved moving her embalmed body. She was placed in a crude coffin constructed of flimsy boards and left above ground. There she remained a public spectacle for over 200 years. Vergers used to charge a shilling to take off the lid so curious visitors could view her corpse. But seeing wasn’t enough for Samuel Pepys, who went to the abbey on his 36th birthday. ‘I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon that I did first kiss a Queene.’ The body was finally removed from public view in 1776.

This English rebel was beheaded in 1685 in one of history’s messiest executions (it took ‘five chopps’). The body and head were dispatched for burial, but at the last moment it was realised that no portrait existed of the duke. Since he had been the out-of-wedlock son of King Charles II, it was considered important to have one painted. Body and head were returned, sewn back together, dressed — and finally painted. The portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

This Irish giant lived from 1761 to 1783. He feared that his huge body would be dissected for study, so he paid a group of friends to bury him at sea. But the famous anatomist, John Hunter, who owned a collection of human oddities, was not to be cheated. When Byrne died, Hunter bribed the friends to deliver the body to him. He immediately set about boiling the remains before anyone discovered what had happened. The speed with which he boiled the bones turned them brown. Hunter kept his acquisition secret for more than two years but finally put it on display. Byrne can still be seen in the Hunter Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

Martin van Butchell was an English eccentric who lived from 1735 to 1812. In his marriage contract there was a clause stating he could own certain articles only ‘while [his wife] remained above ground’. When she died, he retained title to the property by having her embalmed, dressed in her wedding clothes and placed in a glass-topped case in his drawing room. ‘The Preserved Lady’ became a great attraction, with Butchell always introducing her as ‘My dear departed’. When he remarried, his new wife — irritated by the competition — insisted the corpse be removed. In keeping with the provision that she remain above ground, Butchell presented her to the Royal College of Surgeons, where she remained on public view until she was cremated by a German bomb during a Luftwaffe raid in May 1941.

When the fabled Swiss St Bernard who rescued so many travellers trapped in Alpine snowstorms died in 1814, a taxidermist stuffed and mounted him. He may be seen today, remarkably lifelike, standing in the National Museum, Bern, Switzerland.

English philosopher and the ‘Father of Utilitarianism’, Bentham, who died in 1832 at the age of 84, willed his entire estate to the University College Hospital in London — on condition that his body be preserved and placed in attendance at all of the hospital’s board meetings. Dr Southward Smith was chosen by Bentham to prepare the philosopher’s corpse for viewing. Smith constructed the skeleton and affixed a wax likeness of Bentham’s head to it, then attired the body in an appropriate suit and hat. According to Smith, ‘The whole was then enclosed in a mahogany case with folding glass doors, seated in his armchair and holding in his hand his favourite walking stick… Thus, for the next 92 years, Jeremy Bentham never missed a board meeting.’

A professional freak, Pastrana (1834–60), a bearded Mexican Indian, was described as the ugliest woman in history and exhibited all over the world. Her manager married her ‘for myself alone’ and when she became pregnant, made a fortune selling tickets to witness the delivery. The child was stillborn and deformed like his mother. Julia died soon after. Her husband had both mother and child embalmed and placed in a glass case, which he immediately began exhibiting around the world. Her body, still on display, was in Norway at last report.

Phineas T. Barnum’s famous giant elephant, 10 ft 9 in. at the shoulder, was hit by a freight train and killed in 1885. The showman had Jumbo’s carcass stuffed — sending his skeleton to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC — and put the mounted animal on permanent exhibit in Barnum Hall, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. In April 1975 a fire swept Barnum Hall and destroyed Jumbo’s remains.

When the US Army horse who survived Custer’s Last Stand died a national hero, it was decided to preserve and mount him. A University of Kansas naturalist, Professor Lewis Dyche, was paid $450 to do the job. Comanche’s insides were given a military funeral. His outsides were preserved, shown at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, then permanently placed in the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History in Lawrence. In 1947 General Jonathan Wainwright tried to get Comanche back to be a US Army exhibit in Fort Riley, but failed. In 1950, to save his hide from expanding and contracting, Comanche was placed in an airtight glass case with humidity control and set against an artificial ‘sunbaked’ setting of soil and grass.

Tim was a small mongrel dog who went to Paddington Station in London in 1892 to meet the trains. Attached to his collar was a collection box into which departing passengers dropped coins for a British railways fund for widows and orphans. After a decade’s work, Tim died in 1902. He was stuffed and his preserved body — complete with collar and collection box — was placed in a glass case in Paddington Station to continue his good works.

In 1913 a one-legged African-American hobo died after falling off a moving freight train in Marlin, Texas. Anderson (also known as Andrew) McCrew was dead, but he did not rest in peace for 60 years. The morning after his death, he was taken to a funeral parlour and embalmed. When no one appeared to claim the body, a travelling carnival purchased it and displayed McCrew as ‘The Amazing Petrified Man — The Eighth Wonder of the World’. When the troupe disbanded 55 years later, McCrew remained in storage until a Dallas widow, Elgie Pace, discovered him. She wanted to give him a decent burial because, as she said to her sister, ‘He’s a human being. You just can’t throw a body in a ditch.’ However, she was unable to afford the cost of burial, so she nicknamed him ‘Sam’ and kept him in the basement. Eventually, a local black undertaker volunteered to give McCrew a funeral. The service was ‘beautiful, and very dignified’, reported Elgie, and Anderson McCrew was finally laid to rest. Several months later, folksinger Don McLean wrote a song, ‘The Legend of Andrew McCrew’, which inspired a radio listener to purchase a gravestone for McCrew. The stone reads: ‘Andrew McCrew, “The Mummified Man”, Born 1867/Died 1913/Buried 1973’.

On January 21, 1924, Lenin died, reportedly of a stroke, but possibly of poisoning. The deification process began at once. Lenin’s brain was removed, cut into 20,000 sections for study by the Soviet Brain Institute, and then his body was embalmed. It was a poor job and the face became wrinkled and shrunken. By 1926 a Russian doctor, using new embalming fluid which he claimed was based on that used by the ancient Egyptians, re-embalmed the body. A younger, more ascetic look was restored to the face. In 1930 a mausoleum composed of red Ukrainian granite and Karelian porphyry was built in Red Square to contain Lenin’s body enclosed in a glass sarcophagus. In a poll taken in April 2004, 56% of Russians wanted Lenin buried, while 35% preferred that he remain above ground.

When the wife of Argentine president Juan Perón died in 1952, her husband had her body embalmed. Perón planned to build a mausoleum for his wife, but his government was overthrown in 1955 and he was forced into exile in Spain. Eva Perón’s body disappeared and it was assumed that she was buried in an Italian cemetery under a different name. However, by 1971 Perón had retrieved the body and, according to a friend who dined with Perón, the body was present every evening at the dinner table along with Perón and his new wife Isabel. In late 1974, at Isabel’s request, Eva Perón was returned to Argentina, where she was placed in an open casket beside the closed casket of her husband. After being briefly displayed, her body was buried in the Duarte family tomb in La Recoleta Cemetary in Buenos Aires.

The world’s most famous animal actor, Trigger co-starred with Roy Rogers in 88 films and 100 television shows. An unusually intelligent horse, Trigger was able to untie knots with his teeth and count to 20. Upon his death in 1965 at the age of 33, Trigger was stuffed and mounted. He is on display at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, California, as are Dale Evans’ horse, Buttermilk, and their German shepherd dog Bullet.

After Mao, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, died at 82 on September 9, 1976, he was embalmed. His corpse was placed in a crystal sarcophagus to be displayed permanently to the public in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. At night, after visitors have gone home, Mao is lowered into an earthquake-proof chamber below the square.

In 1858, at the age of 14, Bernadette Soubirous saw several visions of the Virgin Mary at a spring in Lourdes, France. Bernadette later joined the Sisters of Notre Dame of Nevers, and today the site of the apparitions is one of the most famous Catholic shrines. After her death at the age of 35, Bernadette’s body was buried and exhumed three separate times in the next 45 years in attempts to verify the incorruptibility of her corpse (according to Catholic tradition, a sign of sainthood). Although there has been some decomposition, owing in part to numerous examinations, Bernadette’s remains are remarkably intact. Her body has been on display in the chapel of the Convent of St Gildard at Nevers since August 3, 1925.

During the six years that followed his death in 1921, the great Italian tenor surely qualified for the ‘best-dressed corpse’ list. Each year solicitous friends ordered a new outfit for Caruso’s body, which lay on public display in a crystal casket. In 1927 his widow decided enough was enough and had a white granite slab placed over the casket. It now remains sealed and undisturbed with Caruso in old clothes at Del Planto Cemetery near Naples, Italy.

More than 3 million people viewed the huge, chest-thumping gorilla in Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo over a period of 20 years. While alive, Bushman often became moody when zoo-goers ignored him. In death, his stuffed and mounted carcass continues to awe visitors at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, where he glares from a sealed glass case filled with insecticidal gases.

When Vu, a Buddhist monk, was nearing death in 1639, he asked his followers to leave him alone for 100 days so he could meditate. When his disciples eventually returned, they reportedly found his perfectly preserved body still in the lotus position. Believing that he had reached nirvana, they preserved his remains with red lacquer. In 2002 monks at his pagoda began restoring the cracked lacquer. X-rays showed that the body was still intact after more than three centuries. Thich Tranh Nhung, the head monk at the pagoda, said that Vu’s incorruption ‘illustrates the ability of the body to acquire a new level of grace through Buddhist teachings’.

‘El Negro’ was the name given to an anonymous Bushman stolen from his grave in 1830 by two French taxidermists, Jules and Edouard Verraux. The body was displayed in a Parisian shop for 50 years before being given to a museum in the town of Banyoles in Spain. The presence of ‘El Negro’ in Spain led several African nations to threaten a boycott of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. In 2000 the embalmed body was returned to Gabarone, Botswana, and given a burial with military honours.

Morstoel died of heart failure at the age of 89 in his native Norway in 1989. His grandson, Trygve Brauge, had the body frozen at a cryogenics facility in California, then had it stored in a shed at Brauge’s unfinished house in Nederland, Colorado. In 1994 Brauge lost a battle with immigration authorities and was deported to Norway. He arranged to pay $674 per month to locals to deliver dry ice to keep Morstoel from thawing out. Four years later, Morstoel became the subject of a short film, Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed, directed by Robin Beeck. Tom Plant, Nederland’s representative in the state legislature, tried in 2002 to have March 9 declared ‘Frozen Dead Guy Day’, pointing out that ‘Grandpa Bredo’ had been ‘a model citizen, never giving the cold shoulder to anyone’. Many representatives were not amused and the motion lost, 35 votes to 27. Despite this setback, Nederland held a festival honouring Morstoel on the weekend of March 9–10. The main events were a showing of Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed and a coffin race. A longer sequel, Grandpa’s Still in the Tuff Shed, was released in 2003.

After the Hall of Fame baseball player died at the age of 83 in 2002, he was taken to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation’s cryogenics facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. The decision was challenged by Williams’ eldest daughter, Bobby Jo, since his will stated that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered off the coast of Florida. Williams’ son, John Henry, produced a note in which he, Ted, and Ted’s daughter Claudia entered into a pact to freeze themselves after death. The handwritten pact, signed by all three, read, ‘JHW, Claudia and Dad all agree to be put in Bio-stasis after we die. This is what we want, to be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance.’ The suit was settled in December of 2002 and Ted Williams will remain indefinitely in one of Alcor’s liquid nitrogen-filled cryogenic tanks.

The sheep was famous as the first mammal successfully cloned from an adult. Her birth in 1996 was heralded as a scientific breakthrough but also triggered heated debate about the ethics of cloning. Dolly was put to sleep on February 13, 2003, after developing a fatal lung disease. Her preserved remains were placed on display at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1993 convicted murderer Joseph Paul Jernigan was executed in Texas. Because Jernigan donated his body to science, his body was frozen and shipped to the University of Colorado, where it was ‘sliced’ into 1,800 cross-sections. Two years later, a 59-year-old Maryland woman was similarly sliced, but into 5,000 segments. These two became the subjects of the Visible Human Project, the first computerised library of human anatomy to be made available to medical researchers around the world.

REMAINS TO BE SEEN — 15 PRESERVED BODY PARTS

Baartman was born in the Cape Colony (part of modern-day South Africa) in 1789. Around 1810 she was taken to London by a British navy doctor, who exhibited her in Britain and France as the ‘Hottentot Venus’. People paid to gawk at her unusually large buttocks and elongated labia. Baartman was also studied by racial theorists seeking to support notions of the inherent superiority of European races. After she died in poverty at the age of 27, her brain and sexual organs were preserved and put on display at the Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris. After the ending of apartheid, the government of South Africa began requesting the return of Baartman’s remains. In April 2002 the preserved organs, Baartman’s skeleton and a plaster cast of Baartman’s body that had been on display were handed over at the South African embassy. ‘She has recovered her dignity, albeit after many years, with a ceremony that has celebrated her as a true person, and I am very happy about it,’ announced Bernard Chevassus-au-Louis, director of the French Museum of Natural History.

This great Catholic theologian and philosopher is one person who definitely did not rest in peace. Almost 300 years after his death in 1274, his remains were caught in the middle of a French religious war that pitted the Roman Catholic Church against the Protestant Huguenots. In 1562 St Bonaventure’s tomb at Lyons was plundered. While his body was publicly burned, the head — said to be perfectly preserved — was saved and hidden by one of the faithful. It disappeared, however, during the French Revolution and has not been seen since.

In one of the less-frequented corners of the Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris are numerous bottles containing human brains. Some belonged to intellectuals, others to criminals. But perhaps the most distinguished of the specimens is that of Paul Broca, a nineteenth-century physician and anthropologist who was the father of modern brain surgery.

Close was an improvisational comedian who trained John Belushi, Bill Murray and Mike Myers. Upon his death in 1999, he willed his skull to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre to be used as Yorick’s skull in productions of Hamlet. Close’s former improv partner, Charen Halpern, noted, ‘It’s not the starring role. But Del was always willing to take smaller parts.’

Even though Irish-born actor George Frederick Cooke died in 1812, he continued to get work in bit-parts. Cooke’s skull was used in productions of Hamlet before being retired to the Thomas Jefferson University Medical School library in Philadelphia.

Lausanne, Switzerland, and Olympia, Greece, are the two most revered sites of the modern Olympic movement. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the movement, left a part of himself in each place. His will requested that his body be buried at Lausanne, the site of the International Olympic Committee headquarters. But first his heart was to be removed and placed in a marble column at Olympia, where the ancient games were held.

What might have been the greatest brain of the twentieth century was not buried with the body that housed it. Albert Einstein asked that after his death his brain be removed for study. And when the great physicist died in 1955, this was done. The brain — which was neither larger nor heavier than the norm — was photographed, sectioned into 240 blocks and sent around the country to be studied by specialists. His parietal lobes were discovered to be unusually large.

The great astronomer died in 1642, but his body was not interred in its final resting place until 1737. During that final transfer to a mausoleum at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence on March 12, an intellectual admirer, Anton Francesco Gori, cut off Galileo’s middle finger as a keepsake. After passing through various hands, it was acquired by Florence’s Museum of the History of Science, where it is now encased in glass and pointing skyward.

The Austrian composer died in 1809. Soon after his burial, a prison warden who was an amateur phrenologist — a person who tries to correlate head bumps with character traits — hired grave-robbers to steal the head. The warden examined the skull, then gave it to an acquaintance, and a remarkable 145-year-long odyssey began. The theft of the skull was discovered in 1820, when the family of Haydn’s patron had the body disinterred. Eventually they got a skull back, but it wasn’t Haydn’s. The real item was passed from one owner to another, some of them individuals, others organisations. Finally, it found a home in a glass case at Vienna’s Society of Friends of Music. In 1932 the descendants of Haydn’s patrons once again tried to get it back. But WWII and then the cold war intervened — the body was in Austria’s Soviet quarter, but the skull in the international zone. It wasn’t until 1954 that body and skull were finally reunited.

Geologist John W. Powell donated his brain to the Smithsonian Institution, of which he was an official, in order to settle a bet with an associate over whose brain was larger. Although Powell’s grey matter is still in the museum collection, that of his associate is nowhere to be found, which makes Powell the winner by default.

José Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines, was accused of sedition, executed by the Spanish in 1896 and buried without a coffin. He was exhumed in August 1898, after the Americans took Manila. Most of Rizal’s remains are interred beneath the Rizal Monument in Luneta — all except one of his cervical vertebrae; the vertebra is enshrined like a holy relic in Fort Santiago.

Sickles was a colourful New York congressman who organised and led a brigade of volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was involved in some of the bloodiest fighting at Gettysburg, losing his own right leg in the battle. That trauma, however, apparently didn’t diminish Sickles’ personal flair. He had the leg preserved and sent to Washington, where it was exhibited in a little wooden coffin at the medical Museum of the Library of Congress. Sickles frequently visited it himself.

When Italian biologist Spallanzani died in 1799, his diseased bladder was excised for study by his colleagues. It is currently on display in the Scarpa Room in the University of Pavia in Italy, where it remains a monument to the inquisitive mind.

In June 1793 George Washington gave a locket containing a clipping of his hair to his aide-de-camp, Colonel John Trumbull. When Trumbull died, he willed the lock of hair to a first cousin of the president’s, Dr James A. Washington, who passed it along to his family as sort of ‘hairloom’. George Washington’s dentist, John Greenwood, managed to acquire another collectible which the president shed from his person — the last of his natural teeth. Washington sent the tooth to Greenwood to use as a model in making a new set of dentures. The dentist kept the tooth as a souvenir, and it remained in the Greenwood family for generations.