Why Ike, whatever do you mean? Maybe poker's just not your game Ike. I know! Let's have a spelling contest!
Posted on 11/08/2007 6:58:23 AM PST by DogByte6RER
On This Day In History
November 8, 1887
Doc Holliday dies of tuberculosis On this day, Doc Holliday--gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist--dies from tuberculosis.
Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed a bad cough. Doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and advised a move to a more arid climate, so Holliday moved his practice to Dallas, Texas.
By all accounts, Holliday was a competent dentist with a successful practice. Unfortunately, cards interested him more than teeth, and he earned a reputation as a skilled poker and faro player. In 1875, Dallas police arrested Holliday for participating in a shootout. Thereafter, the once upstanding doctor began drifting between the booming Wild West towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, and Dodge City, making his living at card tables and aggravating his tuberculosis with heavy drinking and late nights.
Holliday was famously friendly with Wyatt Earp, who believed that Holliday saved his life during a fight with cowboys. For his part, Holliday was a loyal friend to Earp, and stood by him during the 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral and the bloody feud that followed.
In 1882, Holliday fled Arizona and returned to the life of a western drifter, gambler, and gunslinger. By 1887, his hard living had caught up to him, forcing him to seek treatment for his tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He died in his bed at only 36 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
Why Ike, whatever do you mean? Maybe poker's just not your game Ike. I know! Let's have a spelling contest!
A very unpleasant disease, quite unlike the portrayals in La Boheme, etc.
—IIRC, Doc’s mother died of TB -—
“You know, Frederick F*ucking Chopin!”
My grandmother called it “galloping consumption”
My grandmother called it “galloping consumption”
One of the strange things he noticed ( besides wasting from 165 pounds to about 120 ) was that while his strength stayed intact, his endurance went down to nearly nothing.
In those days, it was a "you kill it, or it kills you" proposition.
TB is not caused by a virus. Back to school for you.
Back before isoniazid, it really was a "wait it out" proposition. I'm glad your daddy beat it before it beat him.
Exhaustion is one of the first symptoms - can't lift your head off the pillow type exhaustion.
“Galloping consumption” was the “kills you quick” variety of TB.
gut it out is as good a description as any- he was so poor, he had to keep working as a lineman for Stone & Webster. The only "treatment" back then was moving to a warm, dry climate, like Arizona!
Tucson had many TB sanitariums during the early part of the 20th century. There was one that was located a couple of blocks east of the U of A. It was torn down in the late 70’s. TB sanitariums were very common in the Rocky Mountain states.
Outstanding western flick.
..Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and Holiday (Victor Mature)
So many things in those days were touch and go -- most of us would be dead a couple of times over if we'd lived back then.
So it remains at least a possibility that at some point in his youth, Holliday may have crossed paths with Orrin Porter Rockwell, [June 1815 – June 9, 1878] the so-called Destroying Angel who served occasionally as bodyguard for Mormon leaders Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.
Shotguns actually owned by Holliday share both overall similarities and a couple of special features with two known to have been used by *Ole Port.* That suggests either a personal association, though close study might be another answer. But I do not think it's *just* a coincidence.
Ironically, the shotgun used by Holliday at the Tombstone O.K> Corral shootout wasn't his own, but had been borrowed by Earp brother Virgil from the Wells Fargo office on Allen street, then given to Holliday, who was wearing a long frock coat and could conceal it better than Virgil.
Virgil always was a more practical and more experienced lawman than his brother Wyatt....
I can't wait to look this guy up!
Aside from Wikipedia and the other usual suspects, here's a real interesting starting place.
Dad liked to say "it weeded out the weaklings," and I guess he was right- he was one of twelve children, and roughly half of his siblings died before they reached adulthood, of diseases many people today have never even heard about.
Of course, "death by misadventure" was really common then, too-- when Miss Emily worked at the church, the old records there listed an astounding number of members who died from falls.
Down stairs, off ladders, roofs, and the masts of ships.
The "old days" weren't quite as nice as some would have you believe.
Give me modern surgery, antiobiotics, and obstetrical practice EVERY time. I'd probably be dead if it weren't for modern medicine!
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