The surgeon saw at once that the patient’s appendix had burst, spilling bacterial pus into the abdominal cavity, a condition known as peritonitis. It wasn’t until the next afternoon, Monday, October 25, that he was operated on. What did Houdini do? He telephoned his doctor in New York to ask for a second opinion. The surgeon arrived at three o’clock in the morning and told the magician to go straight to the hospital. Instead he went to his hotel, where the house physician took one look at him and called the hospital’s chief of surgery and asked him to come to Houdini’s suite. He made it through his act, just barely, and afterwards again refused to go to the hospital. Instead of going to the hospital as the doctor recommended, Harry told the theater manager that the show would go on-it was sold out, as usual. The Detroit doctor who examined Harry in his dressing room in the Garrick Theater on Sunday afternoon determined that acute appendicitis was most likely to blame for Harry’s abdominal pain and 102-degree fever. But he had another engagement the next day in Detroit, so he boarded a night train as planned. After his Saturday evening show he could barely manage to change into his street clothes. So yes, he died after being punched in the stomach.īut what was the cause of death? Houdini was already feeling unwell the day before Whitehead’s punch landed, and he felt worse the next day-though of course he continued to perform.
Gordon Whitehead, who wanted to test the theory that Houdini was capable of withstanding hard blows to the abdomen. He persevered, ignoring the pain.Īnd then, on Friday morning, October 22, in his dressing room at the Princess Theatre in Montreal, he was punched hard in the stomach by an excitable McGill student, J. This final tour started badly and went downhill from there: his wife Bess came down with food poisoning, and he himself broke a bone in his ankle while performing a particularly arduous trick. In the fall of 1926, age 52, Houdini went on the road, barnstorming as always. The long answer-truth being harder to package than legend-is no. The next thing I’m asked is whether it’s true that Houdini died after being punched in the stomach.
When I tell someone I’ve written a book about Harry Houdini for the Yale Jewish Lives series, usually the first thing they say is, “I didn’t know Houdini was Jewish.” Well, he was in fact, his father was a rabbi.
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