DESPITE PREMATURE OBIT, DOCTOR AND HIS SENSE OF HUMOR LIVED

"Hoganecdote" on my grandfather

By?JACQUES KELLY Baltimore Sun Oct 24, 2009 at 12:00 am

The Evening Sun reported that 5,160 Marylanders died in the 1918 flu epidemic, but it seems the count was off by one. A news story of a prominent Baltimore physician's death was wrong. He and his family have been correcting this falsehood for 91 years.

Years ago, I became fascinated by Baltimore's experience with the Spanish flu epidemic. As a reporter, I also knew that its severity was played down because of World War I press censorship. Any time that 300 persons perish in one day from a single cause sounds like major news to me. In October 1918, news of the flu was pretty much confined to one report a day in all the editions The Sun printed. There were days when the classified death notices far out-measured the news coverage of the local flu deaths.

One of the comparatively few deaths that did make the news columns was that of Dr. John F. Hogan, a Yale-educated physician. The Evening Sun reported his death Oct. 19, 1918, in a bold-face paragraph: "Dr. John F. Hogan, chief of the Health Department Bureau of Communicable Diseases, died today from influenza. He was attacked by the malady last night." I repeated this account in last week's column.

I soon heard from his granddaughter, who explained that he and, later, his offspring have been dealing with this blooper for years.

An account of the false obituary even made it into author A.A. Hoehling's 1961 book, "The Great Epidemic."

The book states that that Hogan was sickened by the flu on Oct. 18. "He remembered lurching down St. Paul Street late the past evening toward his apartment at the intersection of Preston. ... At the entrance to the apartment, the doorman looked at him and blanched. 'Are you all right, Dr. Hogan?' he asked with concern. 'I'm OK,' the assistant commissioner replied, spitting blood." The account said he was "sufficiently rational" to take a dose of aspirin and quinine before he went to bed.

He also recovered and lived for many years at 7 E. Preston St., where he had his medical office. In the 1930s, he was part of the medical team that treated gangster Al Capone for syphilis.

(I could find no correction notice in The Evening Sun, but papers then had numerous editions and not all made it to the library microfilm versions I read.)

Hogan phoned the paper and told the editor, "I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to read my own obituary while I'm still alive to enjoy it. You have been most generous."

He lived another 49 years, dying Nov. 24, 1967, at age 81. He had a second obituary, which noted his role in directing the fight against the 1918 flu epidemic.

Hogan became a well-regarded urologist and taught for many years at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He was also active at Franklin Square and the old South Baltimore General hospitals. His requiem Mass was offered at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church on Calvert Street, in the same neighborhood where he lived and practiced medicine.

Hogan must have had a sense of humor about the false story. After his 1967 death, his son, Dr. John F. Hogan Jr., supplied details of the old story to Washington Evening Star columnist Philip Love, who retold the story a few weeks later.

That version told of the elder Hogan framing the 1918 obituary and hanging it in his office. He would say to visitors, "The obituary was a failure. The subject survived."