The cause of death and affection suffered by poet Mihai Eminescu remained for more than a century a mystery and an inexhaustible source of theories and polemics. Over the last 20 years, specialists have come to the conclusion that Eminescu was the victim of a gross malpractice case. He was shot down by a faulty treatment.
On June 15, 1889, in the health care house, or better known as the sanitarium of mental illness of Dr. Şuţu, located on the Bucharest Street, at 4 o’clock in the morning, the unprepeat poet Mihai Eminescu was lying on a metal bed at age 39 years old. The last wish of the genius who wrote “Luceafarul” or “Oda in the ancient meter” was a trivial glass of milk, which the service doctor had sneaked through the metal buckle of the “cell” in which he spent the last hours of his life. He would have whispered to the one who did this favor that “I’m spoiled.” The next day, on June 16, death was found, and doctors Shutu and Petrescu make the legal forms and prepare an official, rather ambiguous report, from which the cause of the poet’s death is not clear. In fact, they only report the symptoms of a mental, not physical, disorder.
Moreover, at the autopsy performed by Dr. Tomescu and then by Marinescu from the Babes Laboratory, the brain could not be studied, being forgotten by a negligent nurse on an open window, where it quickly broke down. “Unfortunately, I could not give you much information about the brain of the great and unfortunate poet Eminescu. The brain was brought to me from the Shutu Institute in a state of decay that did not allow for a fine study of the structure of the circumvolution, “wrote a doctor of a Jesuit journalist who had asked him for an article to write.
Two days later, Eminescu is also buried. It is deposited beforehand at the church of St. George “New” in Bucharest, on a cathedral decorated with lime branches. Around the coffin, crowns from the Romanian Academy and friends and messages. Further, after 17.00, the funeral described by Titu Maiorescu followed in a letter sent to Emilia Hempel, his sister. “Emilia dear, in the new St. George Church, the open coffin of Mihai Eminescu was glowed with lime branches in memory of his fragrant potions with lime flowers. I broke a leaf from the coffin and for you and send it to you here. Under tape, you get a number of the “Constitutional” with the burying description. The article is Caragiali. When I accompanied Eminescu, from the church on the boulevard to Belu Cemetery, Rosetti, Laurianu, Mihăileanu, I, Anicuţa and some 600 schoolchildren and students, the admirable chorus of the Metropolitan, it was the only one pump. It was the weather covered, quiet, not wind, no noise, a few drops of rain, about 5 minutes, then again. Cortegiul left the church for 6 hours, arrived at the cemetery at 7. There was a grave from the Town Hall for him, there is something more in the bottom right of my father. By chance, a large lime tree is nearby. For the grille and a tombstone – I believe a big rocky rock of gray marble, with only one smoothed part, on which to be the inscription Mihai Eminescu and perhaps 4 of his lyrics, and a lime inside the grid will be subscriptions. My opinion is 50 bani, so that all students, and Transylvania, can contribute. On Saturday evening Eminescu was buried, “the junist wrote.
With Eminescu’s funeral in Bella Cemetery, the mystery of his death was buried. During 129 years, specialists in various fields, but especially medical, tried to put Eminescu in a clear diagnosis and to determine precisely the cause of his death. “Unfortunately, even now it is not entirely clear about Eminescu’s death,” says specialist Valentin Coşereanu, a doctor of literature and eminescologist at the Ipoteşti Memorial in Botosani County.
There are three important theories about Eminescu’s death causes.

1. The mad killer’s hypothesis

Eminescologist Emil Coşereanu presents the first of these hypotheses in the press. More precisely, he claims to have seen a political dissident, originally preserved, an article in the “Universul” newspaper, namely the June 28, 1926 issue, which made it clear that Eminescu died because of a hit by another patient of the “Charity” Institute of Dr. Şuţu. “The testimony of the barber Dumitru Cosmanescu, to whom Eminescu called him” Dumitrache “, was presented. This was not some, it was the King’s hairdresser. And he tells that he visited Eminescu at the sanitarium where an unusual event happened. Eminescu walked through the sanatorium’s yard, and when he saw him, he asked, “Oh, Dumitrache, do you know how to sing Wise Romance? The barber would have answered ‘No’. Eminescu took him to teach him and began to sing with his superb tenor voice, crying Transylvanians when they heard it.
Then a crazy patient in the courtyard came and hit Eminescu with a plank in his head. The poet fell to the ground and told the barber: “Dumitrache, call the doctor to destroy me.” Two stragglers came and took Eminescu. Then came Dr. Şuţu and said that everything is good and that Eminescu is fine. Two days later, however, he died. Probably that bad blow had hit something. It is a supposition, appeared documentary, “tells about” Adevărul “, Coşereanu. At the same time, the eminescologist does not believe in a political conspiracy or any other kind to Eminescu. “I personally do not believe in such a conspiracy. He had enemies, indeed. He was angry with many of his articles, with his message, but I do not think he got there. Anyway, why would he kill him? He was already interned, taken out of public life, “says Emil Cosereanu. The one who hit Eminescu would have been named Petre Poenaru and would have been school head in Craiova.

2. The theory of erysipelas and endocarditis

Another diagnosis comes from the doctor Vineş, who also took care of Eminescu at the “Charity Institute”. He argues that the poet’s death was triggered by an infection that had to do with Petre Poenaru’s blow. More specifically, he says the head wound has infected, turning into an erosipel, which in turn has led to other complications. “It was a 2 cm long cut of the skin. Immediately the medical care was given, and in 3 days the wounds of the wounds seemed to be reunited. But Eminescu, who, as I said, had the habit of gathering all sorts of things, some of which were dirty and rubbed on the body and on the head with their dressing, made an erosipel at the wound, erizipel which then stretched to the face, neck, upper limbs, thorax, to the abdomen. […] As can be seen from the above, Eminescu’s death is not due to the cranial trauma spent 25 days earlier and which was completely healed, but was the consequence of an older endocarditis (diagnosed by the late Professor N. Tomescu, a primary care physician at the Children’s Hospital, who was a physician at the institute), whom he was threatened at every moment, and who of course, aggravated after the erosipel, “Vines writes in his report, a report quoted by Nicolae Georgescu in his” Eminescu Late “paper.

3. The final verdict: Eminescu victim of a malpractice case

Specialists, first of all doctors dealing with the Eminescu case, reject both hypotheses about the cause of the poet’s death. Following the latest research and the latest findings in the field of neurology and psychiatry, the specialists gave a final verdict on Mihai Eminescu’s case: the poet died after a cardio-respiratory arrest caused by mercury intoxication. In other words, Eminescu was a victim of the Romanian medical system in the 19th century and especially of some doctors who diagnosed and treated him wrong. First of all, Eminescu has been diagnosed since 1886 by Dr. Julian Bogdan of Iasi as syphilitic, paralytic and dementia because of the abuse of alcohol and the syphilis of the brain. The same diagnosis is given to the poet and doctor Panait Zosin, who consulted Eminescu on November 6, 1886 and wrote that the patient Mihai Eminescu was suffering from a “mental alienation” caused by the appearance of syphilis and aggravated by the alcoholism the poet would have suffered secondary. Neuropathologist Ovidiu Vuia, who studied in detail the observation sheets, the symptoms and all forensic reports in the case of Eminescu state clearly: Eminescu had no syphilis. “My findings as a neuropsychiatric physician, a scientific researcher, author of over one hundred papers in the field of brain pathology, are as clear as possible: Eminescu did not suffer from lues (syphilis) and did not have a paralytic dementia,” said Ovidiu Vuia in a specialty article published in New York in 1987 and resumed in his work “About the Disease and Death of Mihai Eminescu”. He was misdiagnosed, adds the same neuropathologist in his study dedicated to Eminescu. “For the first time, some dr. Julian Bogdan, in 1886, hiding his ignorance after a Paris diploma, puts Eminescu’s diagnosis of mental alienation, probably caused by syphilis in the brain and exacerbated by alcohol. A delirium tremens has also been mentioned, and it is unfounded because breaking the lanterns on the street does not mean you have hallucinations of small animals, especially at bedtime, a symptom typical of delirium tremens. I am sorry to write it, but the doctor in Iaşi took the diagnostics (simply from the belly), so from the hearing, and not from the patient’s observation, “Vuia said.

Determined by mercury intoxication

In 1883, from the first deviations and deviant behaviors of Eminescu and until 1886, the poet was treated in Austria and Italy by specialists who managed to put him on the feet, as the good friend of the poet, writer Ioan Slavici has testified. In 1886, he suffered a nervous breakdown and reached the hands of Romanian physicians. In particular, Julian Bogdan and Panait Zosin. Immediately diagnosed with syphilis, after the poet passes through the monastery of Neamţ, where he was sick of nervous diseases and where he is beaten with wet rope and sunk in barrels, he goes to mercury treatment. First rubbish in Botosani, applied by doctor Itzak , and then in Bucharest to the doctor’s sanitarium, where it is injected with mercury. Professor Irinel Popescu, a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy and president of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, during a scientific meeting just to discuss the case of Eminescu, says with certainty that the poet was killed because of the mercury poisoning by doctors from that period. Mercury poisoning has caused cardio-respiratory arrest, which was the cause of the poet’s death. “From February to June 1889, Mihai Eminescu was given mercuric chloride intravenously to the Sutu Institute and probably this was the cause of the cardiac arrest that caused his death,” he said. The view of Professor Irinel Popescu is shared and by another specialist, doctor Raul Neghina from the department of parasitology of the “Victor Babeş” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timişoara. He states that the poet was “treated” by incompetents and kept in misery, which also shortened his life. “After reviewing all medical hypotheses and symptoms, we conclude that he suffered from bipolar disorder and died of mercury poisoning, an inadequate treatment due to a misdiagnosed syphilis. Hospitalized in inappropriate places and treated by incompetent physicians, he suffered not only physically but also morally, dying prematurely. Following a letter addressed to his friends, he rightfully considered himself a slaughtered man, “said doctor Raul Neghina in the study” Controversy medical and dilemmas about Mihai Eminescu’s illness and death “. In other words, Mihai Eminescu was the victim of a malpractice case, being misdiagnosed, being given inappropriate treatment, which caused him a cardio-respiratory arrest and eventually death. In short, Eminescu was killed by mercury poisoning by a group of incompetent physicians. Professor Irinel Popescu also underlined that mercury was already banned as a treatment of syphilis in Western Europe in the 19th century, precisely because of its adverse effects.

Eminescu suffered from bipolar disorder

The case of Mihai Eminescu’s death is clear to today’s physicians. They also show that the poet has arrived in the sanitarium where he was misdiagnosed because of mental disorders. It is about bipolar disorder or alternating states of mania and depression, first appeared in 1883. “For Eminescu’s bipolar syndrome there are direct tests (Shutu’s accounts of behavioral disorders, the opinion of renowned psychiatrist Eliot Slater – author of the famous Clinical Psychiatry , who received from Dr. Nica the dossier of Eminescu’s disease and concluded, without reservation, that it was a manic-depressive psychosis) and indirect evidence, including the opinion of well-known psychiatrists that affective pathology dominates the writers with psychological problems, and artistic creativity can be associated with bipolarity, “says psychiatrist, Professor Dan Prelipceanu, present at the same scientific session in 2014 to elucidate Eminescu’s illness and death. His opinion was passed in the book “Eminescu’s Truth and Mystification” by Nicolae Constantinescu in the Review of Politics of Sciences and Scientometry. Specialist Emil Coşereanu supports this opinion and says that Eminescu has become ill as a result of his inner quest, the disappointments caused by society and, above all, the grueling work of the newspaper. “Eminescu lived in a sense of consciousness of our understanding today, and since then a revolt against what was happening around him in society has said his word in his mind and soul. He fought with windmills and troglodytes. And above all, there were disappointments, and the terrible work of the Timpul newspaper. Well, he kept a newspaper in his own right, “Coşereanu said. Neuropathologist Ovidiu Vuia says that from a medical point of view, the hard work, but also the disappointments in the daily life, as well as the material weights, have ill. “Before the crisis, tired and depressed, has the phenomenon of sustained and heavy work of journalist at Timpul, so they can not be qualified as pathological. Near the maturity of psychosis he presented serious symptoms, all of which were affective and without paralytic stigma, “Vuia.

Cosmin Pătraşcu Zamfirache