He made it through the first act, but his conditioned worsened and he was forced to have his assistant finish the show.Īfter the show was over, Houdini headed back to his hotel to rest up, but his wife, Bess, reportedly “threw a tantrum” that he wasn’t going to the hospital and so a physician was called in to examine him yet again. He began the performance with several vanishing acts, culminating with making a woman disappear and conjuring a flowering shrub in her place. The doctor diagnosed Houdini with acute appendicitis and recommended he head immediately to the hospital for surgery. He was running a high fever and, though refusing to go to the hospital, was nevertheless examined by a physician before the show. Despite the extreme physical pain that continued even after Whitehead ceased punching him, not to mention his broken ankle, Houdini insisted the evening’s scheduled performance must go on as planned.īy the time Houdini was heading for his next show in Detroit, his condition had deteriorated badly. The punches inflicted more pain than Houdini anticipated, and after a few fists to the gut, he motioned for Whitehead to stop. Whitehead immediately took a few jabs at Houdini’s mid-section while the magician was still reclining (he had recently broken his ankle in his famous Water-Torture Cell escape) and supposedly didn’t have a chance to prepare for the blows from the over exuberant Whitehead. Houdini assured him it was true and gave him permission to see for himself. However, the general story seems to be that Whitehead asked Houdini if the claim that he could withstand any punch to the abdomen had any truth to it. It’s difficult to determine exactly what happened from here as accounts from eye witnesses are slightly conflicting.

Two days before this, Houdini had been resting in his dressing room prior to a show in Montreal when a college student named J.

When Harry Houdini and his entourage arrived at The Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan on October 24, 1926, the Hungarian-born magician and escape artist was running a fever of about 102-104 degrees Fahrenheit.

Houdini water tank