I had always thought he had been hit in the stomach area and suffered appendicitis. In fact, I thought he had told folks that he had very strong abdomen muscles and a kid came up and took the chance to punch him…when he wasn’t ready. That burst his appendix and he died later from the injury.
Snopes now claims that is legend.
Are they wrong on this? Has anyone else heard that this is not the basic story?
If you’re interested in accounts of Houdini’s death, check out The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. In addition to being an excellent biography, it goes into several interesting (but entirely speculative) theories about his death.
[sub]Disclaimer: I was peripherally involved in the research for the book.[/sub]
I think it’s been well established that a punch to the stomach did not cause the appendicitis, or the the rupture. Houdini was a great showman and self-publicist, and many of the accounts of his life are difficult to establish as fact, because that’s what he wanted. As an example of his style: Early in his career he would travel to towns to put on a show and then issue a challenge to the local police dept. saying he could break out of their jail or any of their handcuffs. When the police agreed to the challenge he would issue a press release stating that he accepted* their *challenge. The Snopes article seems to reflect the current opinion on this subject from those who studied it.
I’ve seem other conflicting accounts about Houdini as well. His ability to regurgitate lock picks is disputed, as well as how many of escapes required rigged equipment. None of this diminishes his reputation at all, quite the opposite since the greatest part of his reputation is his showmanship.
I don’t think there’s any question that he died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix. The only question seems to be how the appendix ruptured, and it is as likely as any other explanation that it was the normal course of the infection that caused the rupture. He was evidently ignoring the pain, whether because he believed it was from a physical injury (the punch), or afraid of going to the hospital (how typically male) or just sheer macho, something he had no shortage of.
But the short answer to the OP is “peritonitis in the pre-antibiotic era.”
He died of being too awesome for this world.
From Wikipedia:
“Even the circumstances of his death in 1926 were dramatic and mysterious. According to one version, a student in Montréal asked him if his stomach was hard enough to take any blow, to which he replied that it was, whereupon the student rained a series of blows on it before Houdini had time to tense up. A few days later, he died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix. This may have been unconnected, as he had already been suffering appendicitis and refusing to seek medical attention.”
And the section of that entry entitled Death ends:
**"Houdini died of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix at 1:26 p.m. in Room 401 on October 31, aged 52. In his final days, he optimistically held to a strong belief that he would recover, but his last words before dying were reportedly, ‘I’m tired of fighting.’
“After taking statements from Price and Smilovitz, Houdini’s insurance company concluded that the death was due to the dressing-room incident and paid double indemnity.”**
so how many gut punches could you take?
I believe by most accounts today he had appendicitis before the day of the fabled punch. Imho, the part of that story I find hard to believe is some stranger in the crowd would be allowed backstage. Unless one of them was a relative or a worker or “knew someone,” I think it stretches reason that two kids would manage to not only sneak backstage but be allowed into the dressing room of a star of the caliber of Houdini.