| Show WROTf FOEMAND THfN DIED II I I SENSATIONAL SUICIDE OF DR SUMMERS IN ST LOUIS Prominent Yellow Fever Expert Who Imagined the Government Did Not Appreciate His Services St Louis Mo June 19Dr Thomas Osmond Summers late major surgein in chargo of the fever hospital at Santiago and a noted yellow fever expert committed commit-ted suicide Uy shooting himself through the head here this evening Despondency caused by financial lack of appreciation of his services by the government during the Spanish war is assigned as the causo for the rash act Dr Summers was the author of several standard medical works and his successful success-ful treatment of yellow fever during the Memphis epidemic of 1S7S gave him a national na-tional reputation Dr Summers was professor of anatomy in the St Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons The deed was committed In his lecture room as he stood facincr a grinning skeleton which he used in HTus trutin his lectures Several letters written by Dr Summers a short time before his death were found One letter was addressed to his wife another an-other to Dr AV J Donohoe of this city and there was a note to tho public which read as follows This pistol belongs to M AVIcke jeweler jew-eler corner Eleventh and Franklin avenue ave-nue Please return with my thanks IOn I Summers On u letterhead of tho St Louis College Col-lege of Physicians and Surgeons was written a poem I Is as follows PERDIDl AlTUM VALE MUNDUil Good night old worldgoodbwe to all your joys Your sorrows pleasures passions pomp and noise I leave you for the eternal silence of the stars The deafness of unbounded space where bar Xo longer hold the soul In durance vile Where nothing can wrong and nothing dele Where the pure spirit shall despise the things The sense on earth has loved On wlnsrs bathed in the etherix of cter nit How sweet to feel from every passion free And yet it is an awful leap to take Into tho great unknown perchance to 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 late it must Mans final home the Brave At least 1 gives rest from troubles here And we may hope for sweet oblivion there Then Charon come I signal thee tonight to-night com row mo oer the Styx Ivfj lost life light OSMUND On the reverse side of the sheet on which the poem was written and yet It is an awful leap to take into the great unknown The letter to his wife ° june 18 lS99My darling wife I have reached this point where Azonels thread is all that is left to me I feel ewell assured that your love I and es ewel ure teem Will crown my iiniuuij jitu mcy could not bless my life I die that you might live Think of me as I wYis in the palmier days of my life and let the mantle of your charity cover those faults which were more infirmities than sins engendered in despondency and cultivated by disappointment I send the bullet through by brains instead jf my heart that you may know that us last throes beat for you and the dear ones I leave with such inaffable sorrows sor-rows Goodbye OSMUND |
