The Unexplained Death of a Millman
A healthy man collapses in a Seattle office building, but two autopsies fail to reveal why.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The cause that led to the sudden death of T. F. Langstaff, the Michigan millman, Thursday morning while waiting for Dr. C. A. Smith at his rooms in the Colman block, is a mystery that two autopsies have failed to explain. The examination of the organs of the body has been complete, but strange as it may seem, a sufficient cause has not become apparent. The heart and brain, which are the two organs that must be affected to produce sudden death, are to all appearances in a normal condition with slight exceptions not sufficient to produce a sudden collapse. The deceased was a wonderfully well-preserved man and, with the exception of liver trouble, had no symptoms that Dr. Morton and Dr. Loughary have been able to find. Dr. Loughary said: 'It is the only case I ever met with where a sufficient cause of death could not be found. I don't know but it is one of those cases where the heart simply stops pumping.'
“It is the only case I ever met with where a sufficient cause of death could not be found.”
The Colman Block was a cornerstone of early Seattle’s professional life. Medical science in 1893 was beginning to grasp internal pathologies, but the sudden, unexplained passing of a 'wonderfully well-preserved' man remains a haunting reminder of the limits of diagnostic observation in that era.
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