The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-06-20
QUEER DEED OF
SELF DESTRUCTION
Dr. OsnOnd Summers, Physician
and yellow Fever Expert
WITH SKELETON AS illness 8
He Fired a Bullet s : ough His
BrajS ! 5
-% -
LEFT A so @5luY BEHIND
With Few Thoughts FiIched from
Hamlet.
A NOTE ADDRESSED TO HIS WIFE
Said That He Shot Himself Through
Brain That His Last Heart
Throb Might Be
for Her.
A NOTE ADDRESSED TO HIS WIFE
Said That He Shot Himself Through
Brain That His Last Heart
Throb Might Be

st. Louis, Mo-, June 19.-Dr Thomas Os-
mond Summers, late major-surgeon in
charge of the fever hospital at Santiago,
and a noted fever expert, shot himself
through the head here this evening. De-
spondency by fancied lack of appreciation
of his services by the government during
the Spanish war is assigned as the cause
for the rash act.
Dr. Summers was the author of several
standard medical works, and his SUCCESS
full treatment of yellow fever cases dur-
ing the Memphis epidemic gave him na-
tional reputation.
Dr. Summers was professor of anatomy
in the ST. Louis College of Physicians and
Surgeons. The deed was committed in hia
lecture room he stood facing grinning
skeleton, which he used in illustrating hiai
lectures.
Several letters were written by Summers
short time before his death occurred. One
letter was addressed to his wife, another.
to DR.. w. ]. Donohue Of this city, and q
note to the public, which read as follows:
This pistol belongs to M. Wyck, jeweler,
corner Eleventh and Franklin avenues.
Please return with my thanks"
Poem Left Behind
On the letter head of the st. Louis CoI-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons was writ-
ten poem. 1t is as follows:
Perdidi vitum ~
Vale mundum.
Good night old world, good-by to all your
joys,
Your sorrows, pleasures. passions, pomps
and noise,
I leave you for the eternal silence of the
stars,
The deafness of unbounded space, where
bars, no longer hold the soul in du-
ance vile;
Where naught can wound and nothing can
defile;
Where the pure spirit shall despise tho
things
The scene on earth has loved
On wings bathed in the ether of eternity
How sweet to feel from every passion flee
And yet it Is an awful leap to take;
Into the great unknown perchanceyto wake
To greater woes indeed than those we have,
And hope to bury in the silent grave.
But still the great majority is there;
Why should we, then, turn pale with fear?
Or tremble when the hour supreme has
come,
AS sooner or later It must come,
Mans final home-the grave-at least gives
rest from troubles here,
And we may hope for sweet oblivion there,
Then charom, come, I signal thee tonight,
fight. OSMOND.
Letter to His Wife
On the reverse side of the sheet on which
the poem was written appeared, land yet
1t is an awful leap to take into the great
unknown. The letter to his wife follows:
June IS, 1899. My Darling Wife:-I have
reached this point where Abonels thread
is all that left to me. I feel well assured
that your love and esteem will crown my
memory when they could not bless my life.
die that you might live. Think of me as
/ was in my PALMER days and in charity
cover those faults which were more in
frmities than sins engendered in despond-
ency and cultivated by disappointment. I
send the bullet through my brain instead
of my heart that you may know It's last
throbs beat for you and the dear SSeo I
leave with such neffable sorrow. Good
bye. "OSMOND."
The letter to Dr. Donohue was sealed.
1t will be delivered tomorrow. There were
other letters referring to the suicide, but
DIR. Sparn, who accompanied the corpse to
the morgue and his companions objected
to them being given out for publication and
the sergeant locked the letters up.