April 16 | Bernadette Soubirous

January 7, 1844 – April 16, 1879: Age 35

On February 11, 1858, three poor girls were gathering firewood near a cave in the south of France when one of them clearly say a small beautiful lady standing in a niche in a rock. Moreover, the lady spoke to her, telling her to come back to the cave every day for 15 days. The two other girls saw and heard nothing.

The girl obeyed the vision and returned again and again, having conversations with the lady that consisted mostly of sound common-sense advice on prayer and penance. Having also told her family about the visions, however, the future St. Bernadette soon had a crowd following her to the cave every day. On day nine, the lady told Bernadette to drink from the spring that flowed under the rock and eat the plants that grew freely there. There was no spring, but Bernadette tried digging a muddy patch and drinking the filthy droplets that collected, then eating some of the plants. When the audience saw that all she had to show for this was a muddy face, most concluded that she was either lying or insane, but when, within a few days, a little spring began to flow from the muddy patch, everything changed.

People began visiting the place and drinking and washing in the water, and reports of its healing properties began to circulate.

By visit number 13 the lady asked Bernadette to tell the local priest to build a chapel there. The local clergy was quite skeptical, asking Bernadette to find out the name of the apparition. After a few visits in which this request was met in silence, the lady finally replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception".

This statement changed everything. Had she simply said "I am Mary" or "I am the Virgin" things might have been different, but the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been officially defined as dogma by Pope Pius just four years earlier (this was a theological issue not well known to the public, and it is very unlikely that an illiterate country girl would have known anything about it). Suddenly Bernadette's visions were linked to a philosophical development in the official Catholic Church.

By the time she was 22 Bernadette had had enough of the attention her visions attracted. She was a genuinely devout woman who liked simple things and certainly did not aspire to fame or power. She entered a convent at Nevers, 700 kilometres from Lourdes, where she worked as an infirmary assistant and later as a sacristan. Although she did ask for water from the Lourdes spring once to help her asthma (it completely cured her), she didn't ask for it when she tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis commonly attacks the lungs, but can also attack other parts of the body, including the central nervous system, lymphatic system, bones, joints, and even the skin. In Bernadette's case, it affected her right knee. She eventually died of it at the age of 35.

Calls for her beatification immediately, and as part of the investigation her body was exhumed and placed in a new casket in September 1909. Those present, who included a Bishop and two doctors as well as several members of the religious community, found that although her crucifix and rosary showed signs of oxidation, her body was perfectly preserved and had no unpleasant smell. It was washed and reburied, but exhumed again in April 1919, when it was observed that there was some discoloration of the face: this was attributed to the washing after the first exhumation. It was exhumed a third time in 1925, and relics were taken and sent to Rome. The doctor who removed the relics (what they were is not stated in any of the sources I found) noted that the skeleton and muscles in the 46-year-old corpse were perfectly preserved, including the liver, and commented that "this did not seem to be a natural phenomenon."

The face and hands were covered with a light wax mask and, upon her official beatification in June of that year (full sainthood would follow eight years later), it was sealed in a reliquary made of crystal so that all could see the miraculous body. You can, too, below.


Sources: Wikipedia, Biography Online, Catholic Online

March 25 | Ishi

1860 - March 25, 1916: Age 55 or 56

Ishi was the last surviving member of the Yahi people of California. Even though he spent the last five years of his life in San Francisco, we do not know his name because it was taboo among his people to say one's own name, and nobody else who knew it was alive. Nobody in the world could speak his language, or even say his name.

Most of his people had been killed by settlers and cattlemen. He lived most of his life in hiding with the few remaining Yahi, but when they had all died, he approached a group of butchers at their corral in August 1911. He was kept in jail, not because he was a threat (he very obviously wasn't) but to protect him from curious townspeople, who wouldn't leave him alone. Later he was taken to work and live at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California in San Francisco. He helped anthropologists learn about the way of life of his people, and about his language. The name he used, "Ishi", simply means "man" in Yahi.

Unlike the tragic Ota Benga, Ishi was able to find some contentment in his new life. This was probably because Ishi was still in the land where he had grown up. He was close friends with his his doctor, Saxton Pope, with whom he went bow-and-arrow hunting in the mountains of California using bows and arrows Ishi made. In 1916 Ishi caught tuberculosis and died, to the great grief of his friends and all who had met him.

His brain was removed, out of anthropological interest, and only recently (in 2000) was finally reunited with the rest of his cremated remains, re-interred together at an unnamed location.

There have been a couple of TV movies about Ishi and, more recently, a documentary, the trailer for which can be viewed here on YouTube. Here is a link to the website about the doc.

Sources: Ishifacts.com, Wikipedia, Jed Riffe Films

February 17 | Molière

January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673: Age 51

Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, he took Molière as a stage name, possibly drawn from the name of a small village in southern France of the same name. He probably did so to spare his parents the shame of having an actor for a son; they were prosperous bourgeois merchants with ambitions for him that were never to be realized.

Molière was active during the time of Louis XIV. He had all the right stuff for his genius to flower: he was a brilliantly talented actor and dramaturge, and was also a competent administrator and quite capable of moving in society circles, charming people with his wit and warmth. Like Shakespeare, he liked to write tragedy, but was often constrained to churn out comedies to please the public. He targeted the highly affected social customs of the times with deadly accuracy, but he was equally good at conveying he absurdity of universal human qualities such as greed, vanity, and hypocrisy, which is why his plays are still enjoyed today.

Molière suffered from tuberculosis. His last performance was as the lead in Le Malade Imaginaire (The Hypochondriac), where he collapsed on stage in a fit of coughing. The King, who was present, urged him to rest, but Molière insisted on completing his performance. Once he had done so, he collapsed again, coughing up blood. He died a few hours later, unshriven, as two priests refused to visit him and the third arrived too late: they disapproved of the barbs he had directed toward the Church in his lifetime. He was wearing green, which led to the tradition that green brings bad luck to actors.

The laws of the time did not allow actors to be buried on sacred ground, so he was interred in a special corner of a cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants. Although the funeral was supposed to be secret and was held at night, over 800 people showed up. Later his remains were exhumed and transferred to Le Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Source: Wikipedia

November 8 | Doc Holliday

August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887: Age 36

We know about Doc Holliday because of tuberculosis. It's also what killed him. John Henry Holliday was born in Georgia, received a good education (Latin, Greek, and dental school), and opened a dental practice in Atlanta. Shortly after that he was diagnosed with tuberculosis (by his uncle, a doctor) and advised that living in a warmer, drier climate would be good for his health.

He moved to Texas and, although he opened a dental practice, soon realized that gambling was a more lucrative and fun profession. He had a hot temper and got into a few gunfights around gambling issues, and this suited him, possibly because of the alcohol he took to control his cough, and possibly because he felt it was better to die of a gunshot than of tuberculosis. He acquired a reputation as someone willing to stand up and use force, and fell in famously with Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Together they moved to Arizona, and made history in the gunfight at the OK Corral in October 1881.

Holliday moved to Colorado in April 1882 and spent the rest of his short life there. In 1887, prematurely grey and sickly, he checked into a hotel with some hot springs hoping the waters would provide relief. They did not. From the website, Outlaws and Gunslingers:

On 8 November 1887, Doc awoke clear-eyed and asked for a drink of whiskey, which he drank with enjoyment. He looked at this bare feet and said, "This is funny." He then drew his last breath from the disease his uncle fourteen years earlier had said would kill him within two years. He had died in the winter, and the ground was frozen solid and covered in ice, preventing the hearse from making it up the steep narrow road to the graveyard on the mountaintop overlooking the town. The well-intentioned citizens of Glenwood Springs laid Doc to rest in an unmarked grave at the foot of the mesa until he could be transferred to the cemetery after the Spring thaws. According to the townsfolk, he never was.

As the years went by, Glenwood Springs grew outward, and today, Doc most likely lies buried in someone’s back yard. Although his grave has been lost, his tombstone rests in the Linwood Cemetery for all to see. It doesn’t even have his full name on it. It says simply "Doc Holliday."

Sources: Wikipedia, Outlaws and Gunslingers

October 17 | Frederic Chopin

March 1, 1810 - October 17, 1849: Age 39

Chopin was the greatest composer for piano of all time, and was also a brilliant performer. He lived at a time when professional musicians could write and perform music for audiences that were larger than ever. Thanks to newspapers he was world-famous from a very early age: as a tyke he was known as a "second Mozart". He also showed great promise in sketching and writing.

In 1830, age 20, he left Poland to give concerts in Western Europe. In November of that year Poland went into revolt against the hegemony of Imperial Russia. The revolt was crushed, and Chopin remained in France, to be joined by thousands of Polish exiles. He was briefly engaged to a Polish girl, whose family called it off. Later he became involved with the writer Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, better known as George Sand.

In those days a journey was an ordeal, with no central heating either in conveyances or in hotels and slow progress on poor roads. During a journey in 1835 Chopin had his first severe bronchial attack. In the winter of 1838-39 Chopin stayed in Mallorca with Sand and her children. They were unable to find comfortable accommodations and the dank monastery where they did stay caused his health to deteriorate. Over the next 10 years his health and his relationship with Sand were both rocky, and she left him in 1847. By 1848 it was clear he had tuberculosis, and by 1849 he was unable to teach or perform. On October 17, he died in the very early morning. His friend made a death mask and casts of his hands, which can be viewed at the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland (or by clicking here and here).

Chopin had a fear of being buried alive, so he requested that his heart be removed before burial. It was given to his sister in Warsaw, who had it sealed into a pillar of the Holy Cross Church. Chopin had also requested Mozart's Requiem be sung at his funeral, but it required female singers and the Church of the Madeleine did not permit them. It took two weeks of negotiations for them to relent, provided the females stayed behind a black curtain.

Sources: Wikipedia articles on Chopin, Sand, and Death Masks

September 24 | Branwell Brontë

June 26, 1817 - September 24, 1848: Age 31

Branwell Brontë was the male Brontë; younger brother to Maria, Elizabeth, and Charlotte (author of Jane Eyre) and older brother to Emily (author of Wuthering Heights) and Anne (author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). The girls were sent to a horrible sadistic boarding school (read Jane Eyre for the descriptions it inspired). Within a year the two eldest girls died "in ill-health" and the surviving three girls were sent home. Meanwhile, Branwell was being educated at home by their father. The four surviving siblings became closer than ever, developing a rich, imaginative world together.

Great things were expected of Branwell; he had a reputation in their town for being a brilliant boy. He painted and wrote poetry, and chatted with the patrons of the local pub. It was expected that he would go on to Oxford or Cambridge or some other great endeavour. He took a few art lessons, but a plan for him to attend the Royal Academy in London came to nothing. After a couple of attempts at employment, his sister Anne managed to secure him a post as tutor to the son of the family who employed her as a governess. He was dismissed from the family in 1845 under murky circumstances, which almost certainly included an affair with the boy's mother (whose name, interestingly, was Mrs Robinson).

During the next three years the three sisters were engaged in writing and publishing poetry and novels, while also trying to establish a school of their own in order to escape the need to live and work in other households as governesses, the only respectable post available for unmarried women of their class. Branwell painted and wrote poetry, but sunk deeper into depression, turning to alcohol and possibly also laudanum for solace. The portrait shown in this entry of the three Brontë sisters was painted by Branwell. He originally included himself, but later painted himself out, although his shape can clearly be seen. By the summer of 1848 it became clear that in addition to his addictions and depression he had contracted tuberculosis. On September 24, 1848 he died.

In Salmon of Doubt Douglas Adams makes the intriguing statement that Branwell "died standing up and leaning on a mantelpiece, just to prove it could be done". There is no way to consult Adams on his sources (he's dead too now) but it is mentioned in an early biography of Charlotte Bronte, "I have heard, from one who attended Branwell in his last illness, that he resolved on standing up to die. He had repeatedly said, that as long as there was life there was strength of will to do what it chose; and when the last agony came on, he insisted on assuming the position just mentioned." (Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, 1857). UPDATE: I am assured by a student of things Bronte that this tidbit is not true, and I rather suspect they are right. Awaiting a confirmation of source to refute Mrs. Gaskell in a suitably scholarly manner.

His sisters Anne and Emily also contracted the disease. Emily died that December, and Anne the following May. Charlotte lived on to 1855, dying in the first trimester of pregnancy, possibly from excessive vomiting from morning sickness.

Sources: Wikipedia, Brontë Parsonage Museum