Conan and the OAK, Part 5 - 1936 - 1946 by Bobby Derie

A week before [Robert E. Howard] killed himself, he wrote to Otis Adelbert Kline (his literary agent except for sales to Weird Tales): “In the event of my death, please send all checks for me to my father, Dr. I M. Howard.” His father found two stories on which he had typewritten: “In the event of my death, send these two stories to Farnsworth Wright, Editor of Weird Tales, 840 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago.” (IMH 84)

Robert E. Howard had made preparations for his death; Kline confirmed in a letter to Carl Jacobi that:

About three weeks ago he wrote me a letter saying that, in case of his death I should get in touch with his father. (IMH 68)

Kline’s letter is praiseworthy, both of Howard's and Kline’s ability to market him, noting that despite caring for his dying mother, Howard “has been doing a lot of brilliant writing, and we have opened a number of new markets for him with character-continuity series.” (IMH 68)

As a client from May 1933 to July 1936 (38 months), Robert E. Howard had cleared at least $2150 through Kline’s sales—and almost assuredly more, when you consider the stories that don’t appear in the ledger or Otto Binder’s commissions list. The Kline agency for its part probably cleared about $250-300 in commissions (at least the standard 10% of Howard’s sales, possibly 15% for sales before 1935). By the numbers, this wouldn’t make Howard the Kline agency’s best client; in 1936 John Scott Douglas “was good for at least thirty to forty dollars a month commissions in New York alone.” (OAK 16.1) However, Kline also stated that:

I send back for keeps approximately 80% of the material I receive [...] Of the other twenty per cent, I accept perhaps a fourth, and sometimes as high as a half, depending on how the stuff runs. The balance is returned to the writers for revision, some if [sic] it again and again, until they have done as well as they can do with it. Only then is it put on offer, and of course not all of it goes to New York. Some goes to Canada, England or other foreign countries. I select the markets to which it seems best suited. (OAK 16.2)

By this standard, at least, Howard seems to have been ahead of the pack: the only story Kline is known to have sent back without trying it on the market was “Wild Water” (IMH 19), and while Kline initially struggled to market Howard’s fiction, and advised him on revising his work and breaking into new markets, as the years went on Kline was selling a greater and greater percentage of the work that Howard sent him; Binder’s commissions list for the New York end of the business in 1935 lists more commissions from sales of the Texan’s work than any other client. (OAK 5.18) If Howard was not Kline’s best client, he was at least a steady one, and an appreciative one, as Kline uses a statement from Howard in the brochure for his United Sales Plan:

Dr. Isaac M. Howard, Pellagra, and Homeopathy by Bobby Derie

Cross Plains, Tex., April 23, 1921.

The North American Journal of Homeopathy:

A few short years ago quite a lot was written about Pellegra in the South being caused by drinking water from wells in the Southern sections underlaid with a yellow clay foundation. One writer wrote extensively on this, giving the sections of country where Pellegra prevailed more extensively, and claimed to give the geological formation of such sections, and wound up by saying that if any doubted such to be the case had only to read a Homeopath’s description of Silicea proving he would have a complete picture of Silicea.

I have read the several theories of Pellegra, and somehow what this man wrote has stayed with me. Of course there may be a better understanding of the cause now than when this man wrote, but the theory of an unbalanced diet does not hardly satisfy me. However, I want to say that I have several cases of Pellegra from time to time, but one case I have in mind who has been treated with large doses of soda cacadylate. The attacks through the hot weather season is now practically in the same condition as when she came to me three years ago.

I would certainly like some suggestions from Homeopathic physicians as to their methods of treating this disease, and particularly would I like to see Silicea proving described by a Homeopath and its treatment.

(Signed) Isaac Howard, M. D.
Cross Plains, Tex.
(North American Journal of Homeopathy, vol. 69, 505)

Dr. Isaac Mordecai Howard

Pellagra was a vitamin deficiency caused by a lack of niacin (vitamin B3) in the diet; it was especially prevalent in diets that were based heavily on corn (maize), as most of the niacin is not available unless the corn is treated with an alkali and hulled (nixtamalization). Native American cultures dependent on corn understood this processing was necessary, but Europeans who adopted the crop did not understand or appreciate the significance, leading to outbreaks of malnutrition and pellagra throughout the globe, especially in poverty-stricken areas with corn-heavy diets, including the Southwestern United States. There were some three million cases reported after 1902, with over 100,000 deaths, and the epidemic continued for four decades. Symptoms such as Dr. Howard described above were typical:

[…] a recurrent, debilitating warm-weather sickness […] Each spring, he became anorectic and lost weight. Typically, blisters erupted on his arms and legs, and he had extreme melancholia with suicidal ideation. The symptoms worsened during the summer and abated with the onset of cool weather. (Southern Medical Journal, vol. 94, no.3, 272-273)

Pellagra Victim

The cause of this malady was, by 1909, chiefly understood to be corn, but in what capacity was heavily debated, with some suggesting a toxin from “spoiled corn” and others an unknown infectious disease. Treatments were generally “unpleasant, illogical, and quixotic” and included “Arsenic, salvarsan, calcium sulfide, iron, strychnine, quinine, autoserotherapy, partial appendectomy, and static electric shock.” (Southern Medical Journal, vol. 94, no.3, 273) Dr. Howard’s own treatment of “soda cacadylate” (sodium cacodylate) was an arsenical preparation, and a common treatment for pellagrins (as sufferers of pellagra were known), with doctors prescribing large doses. (Pellagra, 1913, 220)

Another idea, promoted by Dr.  E. M. Perdue, A.M., M.D. as early as 1915 in his book Pellagra in the United States, was that pellagra was not caused by spoiled corn but by colloidal silica in drinking water, resulting in “acid intoxication,” and therefore the disease had a geographic cause. Perdue was the American translator and proponent of the idea, based on the homeopathic research of G. Alessandrini and A. Scala, who had published their findings in 1910 and 1913. It was this idea that Dr. Howard was referring to in his letter, and Perdue response was a restatement of his theory:

Forest Hall, office of Dr.s Perdue and Perdue, 1003 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, Mo., July 7, 1921.

The North American Journal of Homeopathy:

In the June number at page 505, I note an inquiry from Dr. Isaac Howard, of Cross Plains, Texas, about a writer on Pellagra who gave the geological distribution of the disease and its cause as drinking water coming from clay soils. He states that this writer “wound up by saying that if any doubted such to be the case had only to read a Homeopath’s description of Silicea proving he would have a complete picture of Pellagra.”

I am guilty. Pellagra is an acid intoxication due to ingestion of water coming from clay soils devoid of alkalies. The poisonous mineral is colloidal silica. There never will be any improvement in this finding as it is a finished research. Determined scientific facts are truths which are not altered and improved upon. Other truths may be added.

Pellagra is cured by the hypodermic administration of a 10 per cent solution of neutral sodium citrate. Give one cubic centimeter daily for thirty days, then on alternate days for thirty days longer.

This was all worked out by Alessandrini and Scala of the University of Rome. The writer was their collaborator in America. The “unbalanced diet” theory of Goldberger was devised solely as “counter research” in an attempt to belittle and obscure the research of Alessandrini and Scala in Italy and my corroborative findings in America. It has no scientific foundation, and in its inception was not even sincere.

Fraternally,

E. M. Perdue, M. D.
(North American Journal of Homeopathy, Vol. 69, 609-610)

Dr. Joseph Goldberger

The “Goldberger” in question was Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a Hungarian emigre who had begun studying pellagra in 1914, as head of the Public Health Service’s investigation. Conducting studies on orphanages and a state sanitarium, Goldberger successfully identified diet as the cause and cure of pellagra, and published his findings in 1921, though the exact culprit (niacin deficiency) would not be determined until 1937. (Southern Medical Journal, vol. 94, no.3, 276)

Dr. Howard’s frustration in the letter can readily be understood, given the nature of the illness, the confusion as to its cause, and the lack of understanding for its treatment. Perdue’s prescription of sodium citrate would have done nothing to address the niacin deficiency, though the period of application might have given symptoms time to abate; likewise arsenical preparations like cacodylate of soda would not treat the underlying cause or prevent resurgence, and was toxic in its own right. Whether he ever followed Perdue’s suggestion is likewise unknown, but it is interesting is that Dr. Howard turned to the North American Journal of Homeopathy in the first place.

Homeopathy was only one of three schools of medicine widely recognized in the United States during the early part of the 20th century, the others being “regular” and “eclectic,” though as scientific progress advanced and licensing and certification became more strict, both homeopathic and eclectic schools began to decline; by the 1920s homeopathic and eclectic medical colleges and hospitals were already transitioning to mainstream medicine and dropping such signifiers from their name. However, many doctors mixed methods, prescribing homeopathic remedies as they would any drug, and it may be that Dr. Howard was similarly open to potential remedies.

Howard received his initial certification to practice medicine in Texas in 1899, having not attended a medical college but presumably having studied and served an apprenticeship for a number of years. (CLIMH x) This was before the state of Texas set up separate medical examination boards for regular, homeopathic, and eclectic physicians. To strengthen his credentials, Howard took a correspondence course from Gate City College of Medicine in Texarkana, TX – which, although later not recognized by the state board, was listed as a “regular” medical school, not homeopathic or eclectic – and continued to take other courses to expand his medical education throughout his life. (Patterson’s College and School Directory of the United States and Canada 1909, Vol. 5-7, 386; CLIMH xi)

The North American Journal of Homeopathy itself was simply the organ of the American Medical Union, a homeopath association, but was self-declared “pan-pathic,” open to submissions from all schools of medicine, though the rival American Medical Association and its own Journal saw it as a haven for quacks peddling nostrums, and it is hard to dispute the point, since it consists mainly of anecdotes related to “Auto-Hemic Therapy.” (Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 74, 477)

We can only speculate as to why Dr. Howard subscribed to this journal, but evidently he felt it of some value, or else honestly sought counsel on treatment for a patient that suffered from pellagra and was willing to keep an open mind on different courses of treatment, since those at his disposal were not working.

Works Cited:

CLIMH   Collected Letters of Dr. Isaac M. Howard (2011, Robert E. Howard Foundation Press)

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 74, 477 (1920, American Medical Association)

North American Journal of Homeopathy, Vol. 69 (1921, American Medical Union)

Patterson’s College and School Directory of the United States and Canada 1909, Vol. 5-7 (1909, American Educational Company)

Pellagra (1913, C. V. Mosby Company)

Southern Medical Journal, vol. 94, no.3 – “Pellagra in the United States: A Historical Perspective” (2000)

Untrodden Fields: Robert E. Howard’s Sex Library; Part 2 by Bobby Derie

Intro From Part One:

[Some considerable work has been done by Howard scholars Dr. Charlotte Laughlin, Glenn Lord, L. Sprague de Camp, Steve Eng, and Rusty Burke to identify the books that comprised Robert E. Howard’s personal library, based primarily on the holograph list of books that Dr. I. M. Howard donated to form the Robert E. Howard Memorial Collection after his son’s death, as well as Robert E. Howard’s surviving letters and papers. Among these books are a number of works of erotica or curiosa which, while not pornographic to contemporary tastes, were nevertheless concerned with some aspect of sexuality (usually from a scholarly or pseudo-scholarly perspective) and were often treated as such. It is interesting to see, based on these books, what light if any they can shed on Howard’s life and work.]

_________________

Otto A. Wall

Sex and Sex Worship (Phallic Worship) (1919) by Otto A. Wall is demonstrative of the difficulty in assigning a specific source to certain of Howard’s beliefs; a substantial tome of over 600 pages and more than 300 black-and-white illustrations, nominally “A Scientific Treatise on Sex, its Nature and Function, and its Influence on Art, Science, Architecture, and Religion—with Special Reference to Sex Worship and Symbolism” it would perhaps more honestly be described as a pseudo-Victorian, quasi-academic hodgepodge of all matters related to sex and religion that the author could dig up, with as many pictures of nude woman in ancient art, medical textbook drawings, or anthropological photographs as Wall could squeeze in, covering everything from ancient mythology to Ernst Haeckel. Much of the material, if Howard ever read the whole thing, he never mentioned in his fiction or surviving letters (it would be interesting to see what he made of  the anecdote of “Conon and his daughter” on page 520), and nothing that he did mention is specific enough to trace back to this source. For example, in letter to H. P. Lovecraft from October 1930, Howard wrote:

For my part, I am too little versed in antiquities to even offer an opinion, but I am inclined to think that these figures represent a pre-Christian age and have some phallic significance. I am especially inclined to this view by the consistent use of triangles in the stone figure. Phallic worship was very common in Ireland, as you know—the legend of Saint Patrick and the snakes being symbolical of the driving out of the cult—and in almost every locality where phallic worship thrived, small images representing the cult have been found, in such widely scattered places as Africa, India and Mexico. Though of course the workmanship of the images differs with the locality and I have never seen or heard of, figures just like these of yours. At any rate, they are fascinating and open up enormous fields of dramatic conjecture. I am sure you could build some magnificent tales out of them. (CL2.95)

Sex and Sex Worship contains sections on both phallic worship and serpent worship, but it is hard to say if this is Howard’s source—or at least his sole source—for his particular datum, since by 1930 the concept of phallic worship had become relatively widespread since being introduced by Hodder Westropp in his 1870 paper “Phallic Worship”; the best that can be said is this is the most likely source, given that the work was available before Howard made this statement and it was in his library at his death. At the same time, however, it feels insufficient to try to account for some of Howard’s statements in his letters to the sex books known to be in his library. For example, Howard writes in a letter to Harold Preece dated 5 September 1928:

Today at town I saw the hang-over of some old and lascivious custom—a girl had a birthday and her girl and boy friends pounced upon her and indulged in a spanking debauch. I have never been able to find just how that custom originated, but have an idea its roots lie in the old superstition that spanking a woman or whipping her with a switch makes her bear children oftener and easier. (CL1.225)

The basic anecdote of a tradition of whipping or spanking a woman on some particular day to ensure fertility and ease childbirth is found in Sex and Sex Worship, A History of the Rod, and History of Flagellation, often but not exclusively when discussing the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The concept of a “hang-over of some old and lascivious custom,” however, speaks more of the influence of Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890). (Burke)

When & Where by Rob Roehm

While researching for his biography of Robert E. Howard, Dark Valley Destiny, science fiction grandmaster L. Sprague de Camp had to sort through quite a lot of information, some of it contradictory. While I am not a fan of the end product of these researches, I am thankful for the notes, letters, and interview transcripts that he left behind, now stored at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. These materials help us to see when, where, and sometimes why de Camp made some of his missteps—posthumous psychoanalysis notwithstanding. Case in point:

In the summer of 1977 de Camp interviewed Wallace Howard, a first cousin of Robert E’s. Sometime after that interview, de Camp received a typed transcription of information from the Howard family Bible, which included the following:

Of particular interest is line #6, “William B. Howard, age 29, died August 2, 1888.” De Camp had a problem: William B. Howard is the name of Robert E.’s grandfather, but he lived well beyond his 29^th year. So who was this W. B.?

In her February 15, 1978 letter to Fannie Dell Adamson nee McClung, another of Howard’s first cousins, de Camp’s partner Jane W. Griffin wrote:

Mr. Wallace Howard sent us some excerpts from the Bible, but without any identifying comments.  For example, a William Benjamin Howard, “only 29 years old” death is recorded.  Would this have been the first child of William Benjamin Howard and Eliza Henry?  [. . .] When and where did your grandfather William Benjamin Howard die?  Was it before or after the family came to Texas?

That April, Adamson replied:

To my knowledge Wm. B. Howard and Eliza Henry had only 3 sons and 3 daughters.  I had always thought that David Terrel was the oldest.  David T. was 25 years old when he brought family possessions from Arkansas to Texas. Wm. B. Howard and Eliza Henry were married in 1856 and David Terrel was born in 1866 – ten years later.  So it very likely could be that Wm. Benjamin Howard, Jr. could have been the first son. 

[. . .]

Not sure of the date but I have always thought that he [William B. Howard] died in Camden, Arkansas, before Eliza Henry Howard came to Texas.  She did not to my knowledge ever mention why they came to Texas.

After a September 9, 1978 telephone interview with yet another of Robert E.’s first cousins, Ollie Lorene Davis nee Howard, de Camp wrote the following note: “William Benjamin Howard [. . .] died before the family moved to Texas.”

All of the above information appeared in Dark Valley Destiny as follows: “Three sons, born to Eliza and William, were growing up. William Benjamin, Jr., the eldest, was born in 1858 and died at twenty-nine on August 2, 1888” and this:

The stable organization of the Howard family was disrupted by the death of James Henry [William B.’s father-in-law] in 1884. Perhaps on the strength of their inheritance, the Howards decided to move to Texas; but before they could complete their plans, William Benjamin Howard himself was stricken and died. Eliza Howard, determined to carry out her husband's wishes, sold her property—fine timberland—for fifty cents an acre, and with her children headed west. In 1885 she located on a farm in Limestone County, between Dallas and Austin, near Waco.

This last piece of information is repeated in the most recent Howard biography, Blood and Thunder by Mark Finn: “In 1884, when James Henry died, William and Louisa decided to make their fortune in Texas. Before the move could be orchestrated, however, William Benjamin Howard fell ill and died in 1885.” Unfortunately, all of the above appears to be incorrect.

James H. & William B. Howard's death entry from the Howard family Bible

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Patrice Louinet, who tracked down the Howard relatives who actually own the family Bible mentioned above, we now have access to the source of de Camp’s information. As the close up from the Bible shown above indicates, it was not William B. Howard who died “aged 29,” though it was his oldest son, James “Jim” H. Howard. (Family legend has this Uncle Jim buried with other members of the Howard clan at Mount Antioch Cemetery in Limestone County, Texas, though he has no marker.) It appears that Wallace Howard is the source of this particular error. He seems to have accidentally copied “aged 29” for William instead of “aged 61.” So, no William Jr.

With the easy one out of the way, let’s have a look at where Robert E. Howard’s grandfather might have died. Keep in mind, all of de Camp’s sources, granddaughters and grandsons of W. B., were fairly far removed from that bit of information. Fannie Dell McClung Adamson’s mother, Willie Price Howard McClung, died in 1919; Wallace Howard and Ollie Lorene Davis nee Howard’s father, David Terrell Howard, died in 1924, more than 50 years before de Camp came calling in the 1970s.

The first piece of information regarding the location of William B.’s death comes from Robert E. Howard himself, in this passage from his circa October 1930 letter to H. P. Lovecraft:

My branch of the Howards came to America with Oglethorpe 1733 and lived in various parts of Georgia for over a hundred years. In ’49 three brothers started for California. On the Arkansas River they split up, one went on to California where he lived the rest of his life, one went back to Georgia and one, William Benjamin Howard, went to Mississippi where he became an overseer on the plantations of Squire James Harrison Henry, whose daughter he married. In 1858 he moved, with the Henry’s, to southwestern Arkansas where he lived until 1885, when he moved to Texas. He was my grandfather.

Seems pretty clear that Robert E. Howard got these details straight from his father, Dr. Isaac M. Howard, who at that time was the last surviving child of William B. And if that’s not good enough . . .

The item seen above is from a “Widow’s Application for Pension” that was filled out by W. B.’s widow in 1910. The application clearly states that W. B. died “near Mt. Calm, Texas, on 3^rd day of August in year of 1889.” This date is pretty similar to the August 2, 1888 date found in the family Bible. If Robert E. Howard’s word isn’t good enough, W. B.’s widow’s certainly should be.