Death
He died at Brighton on 23 June 1888, from the effects of an overdose of chloroform. At the inquest Arthur Thomas Myers, the brother of F.W.H. Myers, testified to having prescribed chloroform for neuralgia, and a verdict of accidental death was recorded. It was widely thought at the time that Gurney might have committed suicide, and Alice James recorded this in her diary. Trevor Hall in his study The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney has argued the case that Gurney's death was suicide, resulting from disillusionment after discovering the frauds of Blackburn and Smith. Gordon Epperson argues against this hypothesis and Janet Oppenheim concludes that "the mystery is not likely to be resolved".
Read more about this topic: Edmund Gurney
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