The May 21, 2009 on-line edition of the journal Advance for LPNs features Cynthia Blank Reid captivating review of the ultimately unsuccessful trauma treatment administered Harry Houdini.
Ms. Reid approaches the Houdini case not as a magic historian or Houdini enthusiast. Her expertise is in medical miracles. She works as a trauma clinical nurse specialist in Philadelphia and her perspective is illuminating.
She gives a clinical evaluation of Houdini’s physical condition prior to his appendicitis.
“Houdini was a relatively small man, standing 5’5″,” she writes. ”He kept himself in shape by swimming, running and doing acrobatics. His medical history was unremarkable until early October 1926, when a series of events would culminate in his death.”
Houdini’s ability and willingness to perform through pain was evidenced when he broke a bone earlier in that fateful year.
“Then, one night in 1926, while performing his famous Water Torture Cell escape, during which Houdini hung suspended upside-down in a chamber of water, ropes secured to his feet were jerked improperly, causing his ankle to break. Houdini refused medical care, insisting the show go on.”
Continue reading Houdini: A Case Study in Trauma
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