So Ethel was shot in 1918 by a jealous lover and survived for 10 days...What killed her? (infect, recover)
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Pneumothorax was treatable in 1918. Surgical treatment of chest wounds was chancy, but the experience of military doctors was advancing techniques.* The limiting factor for Ethel appears to be that she was not felt to be stable enough for surgery.
If both lungs collapsed I suspect she would have died almost immediately.
I agree that infection was very likely. Any blood in the chest cavity would make a great breeding ground for bacteria.
Lead poisoning from a bullet would be unusual and take much longer than 10 days.
Mike, I suspect that if she had flu there would have been some mention of it.
I'd also guess infection is most likely, and internal bleeding caused by the bullet moving around next likely. But, who knows, if there was no autopsy, no written medical records, and the doctors etc who treated her all long dead by this time. If she wasn't expected to survive the night she was shot, they probably made no attempt at surgery to remove the bullets.
FWIW, when President McKinley was shot in the abdomen in 1901, he survived for over a week before dying of gangrene, although for a time he seemed to be recovering. Dying from infected wounds and post-surgical infections was really common in those days, even though hospitals would have had some form of antiseptic surgical procedures in place long before that. X-ray machines (to help surgeons locate bullets and shrapnel) were in use in field hospitals during WW I and probably also would have been available in a major civilian hospital by 1918, but trauma wounds are very "dirty". The thing that really helped with the infection problem was the introduction of antibiotics -- the US military had penicillin during WW II, but it wasn't available to civilians until after 1945. It was one of the great medical advances of the 20th century.
I'm writing a book on Penniman, Virginia, a WW1-era munitions plant which is now a Virginia "Ghost City" (as it was described in an old newspaper article).
In the midst of writing this, I came across an incredible story.
Ralph and Ethel were married - but not to each other. They fell in love at at Penniman and ran off to Richmond frequently for their secret trysts.
Ethel Schneittacher Brown was 38 years old, and Ralph was 55.
While the rest of the world was celebrating the end of the war on November 11, 1918, Ralph was apparently fuming. The war's end meant that he'd have to say goodbye to Ethel and return to his wife and five children in Chattanooga, TN.
On November 13, 1918, Ethel and Ralph met in Richmond (perhaps to say their goodbyes).
Standing on a sidewalk in downtown Richmond, the two had an argument, and Ralph became enraged. He pulled a pistol from his pocket and shot Ethel point blank in the chest, twice, and then turned the gun on himself.
She was rushed to Virginia Hospital (about a mile away) .
Newspaper articles said Ethel wouldn't survive the night, but she did. In fact, she lingered for 10 days before succumbing to her injuries. Ethel's death certificate gave the cause of death as "homicide by shooting" (which isn't helpful).
Here's my question: In 1918 (thanks in part to the war), American medical care had advanced somewhat. If Ethel lasted for 10 days, why didn't she survive the shooting?
The articles said that the two bullets lodged in her left lung. Presumably, she still had a functioning right lung.
From all accounts, she remained lucid and even dictated her will in the last days of her life.
I'm trying to figure out - what killed Ethel?
Was it pneumonia? Infection? Trauma? Shock?
Thanks for any help.
Well -- antibiotics weren't available until near the end of WW2. So infection is way up. Sepsis could have followed. The guy who said Spanish Flu -- timing is right. BUT -- since she was shot, the cause of death is the shooting, even if it took 10 days for her to die.
I'm loving these responses! Thanks so much!! This is hugely HUGELY helpful.
As to the Spanish Flu, that did NOT kill Ethel. The Spanish Flu raged through the village of Penniman in early October 1918, and "it was very fatal there" according to newspaper accounts. There were 15,000 people living in a small village, and the flu wreaked havoc.
Plus, Ethel was working on the shell-loading line, and as such, she would have had some TNT poisoning. The #1 side effect of TNT poisoning is a lowered white-blood cell count, which is the reason that the Spanish Flu took out so many of the workers. Trinitrotoluene damaged the bone marrow's ability to produce both white and red blood cells, and it took months to recover from.
The corset angle is fascinating. Ethel was a corset dealer in 1912, so she probably loved her corsets.
Thanks so much for the responses!
Last edited by RosemaryT; 02-18-2016 at 06:03 AM..
My $.02 is I didn't see anything about the caliber of the gun. While it's not fun to be shot by a .22, it's a different wound than a .45. I'm sure there was a wide range of pistols in 1918. Is the police report also missing?
How about children or any other relatives? Descendants may know her history.
For several weeks, I've been studying Ethel like it's my job. LOL. I've even enlisted the aid of a professional genealogist.
Ethel had no children (despite two marriages and one affair), and she was the only child of Carrie Grace Young Schneittacher and Wilford Joselph Schneittacher.
I've also read the Ethel's hometown paper, The Cosmopolite Herald - cover to cover - from January 1917 to December 1918. In a newspaper that covered every sniffle and scraped knee, there's only one mention of Ethel, and that's a very short notice of her funeral.
In Summer 1918, Ethel left Erie County, PA to work at DuPont's newest shell-loading plant on the York River, near Williamsburg, Virginia. It was dangerous work, fraught with hazards.
I could hardly believe that her hometown newspaper didn't mention Ethel's departure for the munition's plant. We also checked Erie papers, and there's nothing there either.
Apparently, Ethel was the 1918-equivalent of a meth addict, and everyone wanted to keep their distance from her.
My $.02 is I didn't see anything about the caliber of the gun. While it's not fun to be shot by a .22, it's a different wound than a .45. I'm sure there was a wide range of pistols in 1918. Is the police report also missing?
I've been emailing back and forth with the Richmond police for more than a month now, asking for the investigative file for Ethel.
Thus far, they don't offer much hope.
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