Dear Jackie: where Poe is conceerned, the iconodules outnumber the iconoclasts.
There was a widely reported clinical pathological conference about cause of Poe's
death. It was claimed that his symptoms could be explained by rabies.
Rabies can cause death without any readily diagnosible symptoms. In animals
there is the so-called dumb rabies as well as furious rabies. I'll see if I can find URL
that Poe rabies story.
http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/news-releases-17.html