David Mayne says:

>Well, the 21'st edition I have says on page 9: "An autopsy was requested
>and performed by the Los Angeles County Coroner's office, and cause of death
>was verified by them as having resulted from a 'basal fracture of the skull'.
>If further details are desired write the Los Angeles County Recorder's Office,
>Hall of Records, Los Angeles, California."

Thanks David. Very interesting to know there are actual records somewhere
that can be checked. Beyond the actual physiological cause of death,
though, I think what people are the most curious about are the actual
circumstances of Ehret's death. I.e., how did he come to crack his skull
open in the first place?

For example, I've heard two variations of a story (I heard these long ago
and can't remember sources, except I know there were none given wherever it
was I heard the stories myself), neither of which I have much confidence
in. Both say Ehret had just given a lecture at some public place and was
coming out of the building when he misjudged his step and fell head-first
into a curb, or something to that effect. There is a bit more elaborate
version from those looking to paint him as something of a charlatan that
says the reason he tripped and fell in the first place was because he had
jazzed himself up on coffee either before or after the lecture, and wasn't
in full possession of his faculties.

What's interesting about these tales is that usually there are those
looking to use the occasion to paint a negative picture, others a more rosy
one. I think what bothers people most about the deaths of prominent figures
in the alternative health movement is that the details often seem to be
shrouded in mystery or don't seem forthcoming enough. (Few heard about
Shelton's death due to Parkinson's until long after the fact, and the
typical defensive explanation in Hygienic circles that he got it from
overwork, thus PROVING the canon of Hygeiene, seems to many a bit too
convenient to swallow, for instance.)

What would be ideal here is some kind of third-party verification such as
an obit in the newspaper of record either in his hometown or in LA, if that
is where Ehret died. Or the coroner if they recorded the circumstances of
death as well as proximate physiological cause.

Of course, it often seems silly that we worry about these things,
especially years after the fact, but people do get to wondering because the
facts are often so obscure. At least that didn't happen with T.C. Fry
thanks to Chet Day's efforts.

By the way, did the ANHS ever publish an obit of Fry in their magazine? If
anybody should have shouldered the responsibility, it would have been them.
If not, Chet's unofficial report in Health & Beyond will probably be the
only record of it anywhere. I think it was right around the time of Fry's
death that I dropped my ANHS membership and Health Science magazine
subscription, so I don't know if they did myself.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>