Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night again -
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, courtesy of Linda Stufflebean for suggesting the topic, is to:
1) What is the most unusual cause of death you have discovered for your ancestors?
Here's mine:
I browsed through my RootsMagic database looking for unusual causes of death and found lots of deaths from heart problems, pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza, kidney problems, suicide, and accidents.
One unusual way of ending one’s own life was through drinking carbolic acid. My great-grandfather, John A. Hork, did that at a saloon in Sheridan, Wyoming in 1906. This unusual way of killing oneself caused newspapers from other places in the country to report on it even though he was not a known person. The distinctive way he died caused the newspapers to pick up the news.
It seemed he asked for a drink on the house or by credit and was refused. So, he drank from a vial of carbolic acid and died.
Below is a list of some of the newspapers found describing the incident:
- “Whiskey or Carbolic Acid and Hork Took the Latter,” San Francisco Call, 22 Aug 1906, p. 14, col. 3.
- “The Carbolic Route,” Sheridan Enterprise, 17 Aug 1906, p. 3.
- “Refused Drink; Ends His Life with Poison,” Denver Post, 20 Aug 1906, p. 2, col. 2.
- “Completed Sale While Life Slowly Ebbed Away,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, p. 2.
- “Whisky or Acid for his Portion,” Laramie Republican, 21 Aug 1906, p. 2, col. 7.
Not all the articles gave the same facts. The one from the Denver Rocky Mountain News said he was waiting on a customer who was unaware Hork was dying. However, the other articles said he asked for a drink from the bartender, who refused his request.
The Sheridan newspaper was the first one I got from the librarian at Sheridan, Wyoming. I still have not found the paper digitized online yet. It was a shock to discover that he had committed suicide in that manner.
In searching newspapers for carbolic acid, I found other articles about people who used it to commit suicide. It seems it was easy to get a hold of, though, in Chicago in 1906, there was a law prohibiting druggists from selling it at 95 percent solution (full strength) except with a physician’s prescription. 30 percent was commonly sold to the public. The article also mentioned, that when a newspaper announced a suicide by carbolic acid, other suicides tended to follow.
Carbolic acid, also known as phenol, was used as an antiseptic and there were many ads in the papers of that time selling carbolic soap. According to the article on Wikipedia, the effect on the central nervous system is a sudden collapse and loss of consciousness, a state of cramping precedes the symptoms.
That is an unusual method to choose. I wonder if he knew it was fatal or if he was just showing off and the result was unintended?
ReplyDeleteNo idea, though others used it, too.
DeleteHow unusual of a method was this at that time among people who chose to commit suicide?
ReplyDelete