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From a purely medical perspective, it might be fair to say that Poe was an alcoholic. Unfortunately, the common use of this term carries more than its merely clinical meaning. First, it suggests that Poe's life was one long series of drunken sprees, which is both unkind and inaccurate. Secondly, it is used to dismiss Poe as a writer, as if his poems and stories are better or worse depending on his personal habits. (The fact that Richard Wagner was, by most accounts, a rather despicable anti-Semite does not make his music any more or less beautiful.) It is reasonable to say that none of Poe's stories or poems were inspired by or written under the influence of alcohol. The proof of this statement is self-evident. Imagine reading, let alone writing, one of Poe's long, flowing and carefully constructed sentences while anything less than sober. At the very least, it seems that high-minded (and often hypocritical) moral indignation should give way to sympathy and understanding.

We must be careful accepting every statement about Poe's drinking at face value. Poe's enemies, and others who should know better, often attributed any reference to Poe being ill as another occasion of drinking. Although it appears that more than one or two drinks made Poe very ill, it is unreasonable to assume that he was never ill from other, and more commonplace, causes. One must also be careful not to count every repetition of a single event as an independent incident. There are also such obvious questions as the character of the witness and, as recollections were often recorded more than a decade after the events described, the reliability of teller's memory. Second hand accounts may generally be dismissed as hearsay.

Certainly, Poe drank and often drank more than was good for him, even after he had promised himself to stay away from alcohol. It also seems likely that Poe's father (David Poe, Jr.) and brother (Henry Poe) were hard-core drinkers. On August 10, 1829, Poe wrote to John Allan, ". . . Henry is entirely given up to drink & unable to help himself" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 29). Such familial ties to drinking may suggest a genetic predisposition, which is certainly consistent with our modern understanding of alcoholism. Poe's own repeated, and often failed, promises that he was "done with drinking forever" must also be acknowledged as a familiar echo of many an alcoholic.

Poe's flirtation with alcohol, however, was mostly intermittent - a few days of drinking followed by months or even years of abstinence. In April of 1841, Poe wrote to Dr. J. Evans Snodgrass defending himself against W. E. Burton's accusations, ". . . I am temperate even to rigor. . . . At no period of my life was I ever what men call intemperate. . . . My sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an everyday matter to my companions. In short, it sometimes happened that I was completely intoxicated. For some days after each excess I was invariably confined to bed. But it is now quite four years since I have abandoned every kind of alcoholic drink - four years, with the exception of a single deviation . . . when I was induced to resort to the occasional use of cider, with the hope of relieving a nervous attack" (Ostrom, Letters, pp. 155-157). Poe's admission of "a single deviation" speaks in favor of his honesty in this letter.

The first certain reference to Poe's drinking occurs in Richmond in 1835. On September 8, 1835, T. H. White, owner of the Southern Literary Messenger, wrote to Lucian Minor, "Poe is now in my employ - not as Editor. He is unfortunately rather dissipated, - and therefore I can place very little reliance upon him. His disposition is quite amiable. He will be of some assistance to me in proof-reading - at least I hope so . . ." (Jackson, Poe and the SLM, 1934, p. 98. Also The Poe Log, p. 167.) Poe did not fulfill this hope and White was forced to let him go only a few weeks later. By the end of September, Poe asked to be reinstated, promising to avoid drinking. On December 25, 1835, White wrote again to Lucian Minor, "Poe . . . I rejoice to tell you, still keeps from the Bottle" (Jackson, Poe and the SLM, p. 107. Also The Poe Log, p. 185). On January 22, 1836, Poe wrote to J. P. Kennedy, "Although I have never yet acknowledged the receipt of your kind letter of advice some months ago, it was not without great influence upon me. I have, since then, fought the enemy manfully, and am now, in every respect, comfortable and Happy" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 81). By the end of 1836, however, Poe seems to have lapsed and White was forced to give him notice. In 1875, R. M. T. Hunter, who had known Poe at the University of Virginia, recalled "Here [in Richmond] his [Poe's] habits were bad. . . . Poe was the only man on White's staff capable of doing this [proofing classical quotations] and when occasionally drinking (the habit was not constant) he was incapacitated for work" ( The Poe Log, p. 237). Poe himself admitted to his failings during this time. In his April 1841 letter to J. E. Snodgrass, Poe notes ". . . for a brief period, while I resided in Richmond, and edited the Messenger, I certainly did give way, at long intervals, to the temptation held out on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 156).

Alexander Crane, an office boy for the Broadway Journal, recalled in 1902 an occasion of Poe's drinking in April of 1845. Poe was scheduled to deliver a lecture, which was canceled due to bad weather and low turnout. The next morning, Poe came to the office "leaning on the arm of a friend, intoxicated with wine" ( The Poe Log, p. 526). James Russell Lowell recalled, in 1879, visiting Poe at his lodgings in May of 1845 and of finding "him a little tipsy, as if he were recovering from a fit of drunkenness" ( The Poe Log, p. 536). Lowell's account is verified by a letter from C. F. Briggs, July 16, 1845. To Lowell, Briggs wrote, "Poe's mother in law told me that he was quite tipsy the day you called upon him, and that he acted very strangely, but I perceived nothing of it when I saw him in the morning." Briggs then adds, "He was to have delivered a poem before the societies of the New York University, a few weeks since, but drunkenness prevented him. I believe that he had not drunk anything for more than 18 months until within the last 3 months, but in this time he has been very frequently carried home in a wretched condition" ( The Poe Log, p. 551). The last story seems to come from an item Dr. English printed in the Morning Telegraph for June 23, 1846: "Mr. Poe accepted an invitation to deliver a poem before a society of the New York University . . . [but] he could not write the poem . . . [and] as he always does when troubled - drank until intoxicated; and remained in a state of intoxication during the week" ( The Poe Log, p 540).

Poe's October 16, 1845 misadventure at the Boston Lyceum would prove to be one of the most unfortunate of his public appearances, providing great fodder for his enemies in the press. Poe had accepted an invitation to read a poem, with the understanding that it would be an original piece written expressly for the occasion. He was paid $50 as an honorarium. As the time approached, Poe found the pressure of the deadline quieting his muse. Unable to produce a new poem, Poe read instead "Al Aaraaf," retitled as "The Messenger Star of Tycho Brahe." At the reception that followed, he privately admitted the humble nature of the poem, apparently thinking it a great hoax on the self-important snobs of the Lyceum. The news spread quickly and the Frogpondians (as Poe called the Boston literati) did not take kindly to a joke at their expense. The Boston papers were indignant and spared nothing in denouncing his performance. About November 15, the New England Washingtonian added a new accusation to the debate: "he [Poe] should bow down his head with shame at the thought that he, in this day of light, presented himself before a moral and intelligent audience intoxicated!" ( The Poe Log, p. 590). Poe's defiant response to this attack was ill-considered and did him no credit "we are perfectly willing to admit that we were drunk - in the face of at least eleven or twelve hundred Frogpondians [Bostonians] who will be willing to take an oath that we were not. . . . We shall get drunk when we please. As for the editor of the 'Jefferson Teetotaler' (or whatever it is) we advise her to get drunk, too, as soon as possible" (Pollin, ed, The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe , Volume 3 - Writings in the Broadway Journal, Part 1, The Text, p. 315). Poe may have had a glass of wine or some champagne at the reception. The fact that even the most negative commentary over the next few weeks made no claim that he was drunk strongly suggests that he was not. Once the charge had been made, however, it became an indelible part of the myth of Poe as a drunkard and would haunt him to his grave.

Had Poe never taken another drop of alcohol for the rest of his life the accusations probably would not have gone away. Regrettably, Poe appears to have continued his occasional lapses. Robert D'Unger recalled, in 1899, that in the Spring of 1846 he had seen Poe in Baltimore. "As Mr. Poe stood up to the 'Bar' and drank off a big whiskey, (I believe this was his favorite tipple) . . . I formed the opinion that the poet had, in his time, seen many a barkeeper's countenance. . ." ( The Poe Log, p. 628). D'Unger also claimed that in 1847, Poe and William M. Smith visited the house of Mary Nelson with a bottle of champagne (Mabbott, Poems, p. 570). As with a number of those who provided recollections about Poe, D'Unger's trustworthiness has often been questioned, though never expressly disproved.

Replying to Poe's comments about him in "The Literati," Dr. English published an item in the Morning Telegraph (June 23, 1846) in which he accused Poe of "having been guilty of some most ungentlemanly conduct, while in a state of intoxication . . ." and included a charge of forgery ( The Poe Log, pp. 647-648). English's article was copied in the New York Mirror and this literary battle escalated. Eventually, Poe took the matter to court, although he sued the Mirror rather than Dr. English, presumably because the Mirror had deeper pockets. On February 17, 1847, the case was heard. Dr. English had fled to Washington D. C. and the defense presented no witnesses. Testifying for Poe, Freeman Hunt and Mordecai M. Noah stated that they "Never heard anything against him except that he is occasionally addicted to intoxication" ( The Poe Log, p. 689). Poe won the suit and was awarded the sum of $225.06 in damages (Moss, Literary Battles, p 238). He felt vindicated, but the "addicted to intoxication" statement was widely repeated by Hiram Fuller, one of the owners of the Mirror, and the whole episode merely encouraged Poe's enemies to outdo one another in satirical depictions of him.

On August 6, 1847, Louis A. Godey (of Godey's Lady's Book) wrote to George W. Eveleth, noting that he had seen Poe "quite sober," but had "heard from him elsewhere when he was not" (Mabbott, Poems, p. 563). On February 29, 1848, Poe wrote to George W. Eveleth, "I rise early, eat moderately, drink nothing but water, and take abundant and regular exercise in the open air. . . . the causes which maddened me to the drinking point are no more, and I am done drinking, forever" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 360).
In 1848, Poe called on his fiancee, Sarah H. Whitman, after breaking his promise to her that he would not drink. Within a few months, she called off the wedding plans, but never spoke ill of him.

On July 7, 1849, Poe wrote to Maria Clemm from Philadelphia, "I have been taken to prison once since I came here for getting drunk; but then I was not. It was about Virginia" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 452). From Richmond, Poe wrote again to Maria Clemm, "For more than ten days I was totally deranged, although I was not drinking one drop; and during this interval I imagined the most horrible calamities. . . . All was hallucination, arising from an attack which I had never before experienced. . . . I have not drank anything since Friday morning, and then only a little Port wine. If possible, dearest Mother, I will extricate myself from this difficulty for your dear, dear sake. So keep up heart" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 455). This admission has often been interpreted as a case of delirium tremens, induced by alcohol withdrawal.

Late in August of 1849, Poe was initiated into the Sons of Temperance, Shockoe Hill Division, in Richmond ( The Poe Log, p. 829.) In 1900, W. J. Glenn, formerly an officer of the Sons of Temperance, reported to James A. Harrison that "the statement was made and too busily circulated that his death was the result of a spree commenced as soon as he reached Baltimore. We of the temperance order to which he belonged exerted ourselves to get at the facts, and the consensus of opinion was that he had not been drinking, but had been drugged" (Harrison, Complete Works, vol I, p. 321). One of those who said that Poe had strayed from his pledge was Bishop O. P. Fitzgerald, who claimed that Poe attended a birthday party in Baltimore and, out of courtesy, could not refuse the drink a toast to the hostess (Mabbott, Poems, p. 568). Whether or not alcohol was involved with his death has been hotly debated, but as all witnesses for both sides have shown themselves willing to modify the facts, no certain conclusion can be reached.

That, then, is the sum of our information about Poe and alcohol. Whether or not it is fair to call him an alcoholic will have to rely on your own judgment.

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From a purely medical perspective, it might be fair to say that Poe was an alcoholic. Unfortunately, the common use of this term carries more than its merely clinical meaning. First, it suggests that Poe's life was one long series of drunken sprees, which is both unkind and inaccurate.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/21/books.booksnews

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I agree with your evidence, there's several different diseases that all have the same symptoms.

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I agree with your evidence also, his brain tumor could've gotten worse as he got older and eventually killed him. And he also could've made somebody mad and that's why they gave him alcohol, so he would die.

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I think that alcohol poisoning is reasonable also. If he was a victim of cooping, he could of gotten alcohol poisoning from the people that did it to him.

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I think that's reasonable. Studies and research showed that they never took an autopsy on his body. I believe both CO poisoning and alcohol poisoning contributed to his death. He had the exact same symptoms as CO poisoning and alcohol poisoning. He was slowly passing away overtime.

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Matthew Pearl, an author spent 3 years studying Poe's death, he had his friends wife, a forensic pathologist, look into the "hard mass" in the grave. She confirmed that when brain tumors calcify, they become hard.

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Is there anymore evidence that he died from a brain tumor?

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I also believe part of his death was from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. One of his eyes is slanted down and his lip on the other side of his face is slanted down. CO poisoning deteriorates the nerves in your face which is what happened to his face. CO poisoning also affects your physical and mental symptoms. This explains why all of his poems and stories were crazy and weird.

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In later studies, they found that when his casket was moved around, they heard something rolling around and people claimed his brain was shrunken and dried. The brain is the first thing to decay on a dead body, what the people saw would have to be a brain tumor. It would of also caused his crazy acts.

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what's your evidence?

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I believe Poe died from alcohol dehydrogenase because it is a condition where your body can't handle alcohol the way other people can. At his death bed in the hospital, he refused alcohol, but also refused to drink water.

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What's your evidence?

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I think Poe died from a brain tumor.

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I believe Poe died from alcohol.