For those interested a picture of the hospital and the actual room Houdini died in is pictured on our web site, http://houdini.org

There is no record we can find of Houdini ever doing the punching to the stomach as a challenge, as often claimed by Radner and others. We once asked Ken Silverman about this and he said in all his research he had never seen a reference of Houdini doing the punch to the stomach challenge. To show Houdini's attitude of denial, even when advised to go to the hospital having 104 fever he waited, and called his doctor in NYC for confirmation.

Dick Brooks and Dorothy Dietrich
Houdini Museum

I am reading the book; "The Man who Killed Houdini" by Don Bell. I am impressed by the directions his journey took to find the places and situations for the 'punched in the stomach' story. The author died before it was published, so maybe he did not get the chance to do any revisions. Until I started to read this book I never really noticed how sudden the 'punch' challenge appears in the Houdini story, and I am intrigued by how its suddeness was overlooked for so many years. Most interesting to me is that for Bess to claim the double indemnity on the insurance, the three principles in the actual punching story had to give affidavits to Bess' attorny and over the years these three important Houdini documents vanished.

I have finsished the book, and it turns out that the affidavits still exist and ther are some excerts from them. I have no idea if the full texts are available.