LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Rabies Death Theory

from The New York Times, September 30, 1996

To the Editor:

Contrary to a September 23 letter, I do not “admit” that the lack of bite or scratch is a weakness in my theory that Edgar Allan Poe may have died of rabies encephalitis.

Data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that over the past 20 years in the United States there have been 33 reported cases of human rabies, yet only 24 percent of these victims could recall an appropriate history of animal exposure. Bat-related subtypes of rabies have been identified in 15 cases of human rabies since 1980, although patient contact of any sort with bats could be documented in only 7 of these patients.

A diagnosis is not always easy or straightforward. The incubation period¹ in humans may be as long as a year, if the inoculation² is small and occurs on the hand or foot. Thus the lack of evidence of a bite or scratch is not inconsistent with the diagnosis. Finally, although physicians knew how rabies was transmitted at the time of Poe’s death, even at the time of Louis Pasteur’s first use of a rabies “vaccine” in 1885 the causative agent, a rhabdovirus, was unknown.³

I was saddened to hear of the fate of Caterina, Poe’s cat, yet nowhere have I suggested that Poe contracted rabies from her, although it is worth noting that there was no available vaccine for pets at that time.

R. Michael Benitez, M.D.
Baltimore, Maryland
September 26, 1996

The writer is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center.