John always carried some sort of sweet—often a slice of cake—in his coat pocket, believing it provided relief for his asthma. A fixture is his Baltimore, Maryland neighborhood known for conversing and sharing sugary morsels with local children (the 19th century way not the modern white van way), one never could have predicted that his donning a long-forgotten jacket one cloudy and cold afternoon would lead to both his painful death, as well as the death of young Elizabeth Eichman the very next day.
An immigrant from Bavaria, 79-year-old John Henry Lauterbach came to the United States in 1869 to live with his son, Ferdinand, and family above their confectionery shop and bakery at 680 West Baltimore in the 19th Ward.
Early on the evening of December 21, 1875, following a visit with his daughter nearby, he made his way to see friends at the shoe shop across the street from his home. There he was greeted by shop assistant Everhardt Decker (what a name!), the store’s owner, Mrs. Anna Schmidt, her daughters Margaret “Maggie” and Henrietta, and her granddaughter Elizabeth “Lizzie” Eichman. A local girl named Barbara Haefen was also hanging around.
John greeted all before offering to share the sponge cake he himself was nibbling on. Maggie was the first to take him up but threw hers away after finding the smell and taste unpleasant. Henrietta and Barbara both ate some, but just a few crumbs. As little 8-year-old Lizzie gobbled hers up, Mr. Lauterbach began to feel unwell. He “was also made sick, and obliged to vomit,” reported the Baltimore Sun on December 23, 1875, “He went to his son’s house at 7 o’clock PM and retired at 9 PM, making no complaint after reaching home.”
Back at the shoe shop, when Lizzie, too, began to feel unwell, she was put to bed in her family rooms upstairs. Soon she was violently ill and profusely vomiting. The same aforementioned Baltimore Sun article reported that those in the room with the little girl saw “the matter ejected smoke, and gave when stirred a phosphorescent gleam like that of a match rubbed in the dark against the palm.”
A Dr. Enterline was called and remedies were given to no effect. After hours of suffering with what she described as an intense burning feeling as well as a choking sensation in her throat and lungs, Lizzie passed away around 3 am on the 22nd. Later that morning, Ferdinand Lauterbach was notified of Lizzie’s death and went looking for his father. John Henry was found dead, half-dressed with his head bent over the footboard of the bed in his room which smelled strongly of the garlic odor phosphorus emits.
Coroner George Cooke Ogle was called to examine both bodies. The shared sponge cake, erroneously reported early on by the Baltimore Sun and The New York Times as pound cake, quickly came under suspicion as both the deceased were the only ones to have eaten a sufficient quantity.
Maggie had thrown hers out and Henrietta and Barbara had eaten such a small amount that they found relief having expelled it from their bodies. Leftovers of the cake were discovered in Mr. Lauterbach’s jacket pocket as were numerous Lucifer matches. Upon finding these, Ogle was quick to suspect the cause.
His suspicions were confirmed when chemical analysis on the cake crumbs carried out by a Maryland University professor, William A. Aiken, found that it contained a large proportion of sulfur, and further testing on Lizzie’s stomach contents found that it, too, contained plenty of the element. A December 30th article in the Sun stated that sulfur was indeed the culprit and that “a grain is sufficient to cause death…a box of these matches contains nearly five grains.” That said, sulfur is generally considered to be of low-toxicity though ingestion can lead to stomach issues and a burning sensation. It seems most likely that the white phosphorus used in the matches was to blame.
The first modern match was invented around 1827 by an English pharmacist named John Walker. He found that a bit of wood onto which a mixture composed primarily of potassium chloride and antimony sulfide had been applied would burst into flame when friction occurred. He boxed his matches with sandpaper for striking and called them Friction Lights. Soon after, Sir Isaac Holden had “the idea to put sulfur under the explosive mixture” (as quoted in a New York Times write up on May 9, 1897). Not having patented his match, the product was branded and sold by a chemists’ son named Samuel Jones as Lucifers, latin for “light bringing.”
In the 1830s, white phosphorus (also sometimes known as yellow phosphorus) was added to the mix. This allowed for quick ignition requiring only the gentle warmth created from being struck against almost any surface. Even though safety matches, which separated the chemicals between the match head and a friction strip were developed in 1844, “strike anywhere” Lucifers were widely popular for decades until the horrific effects of their production came to light culminating with the Matchgirl strike of 1888 at the Bryant & May factory in London. White phosphorus caused what came to be known as phossy jaw in many of those that worked with it on a daily basis. Necrosis, or the death of bodily tissue, took place primarily in the jaw area resulting in an infection that could require partial removal of the jaw bone at best, a painful death at worst. Yet an international ban on white phosphorus as used in the production of matches wouldn’t happen for decades to follow.
The World Health Organization states that white phosphorus is “harmful to humans by all routes of exposure,” and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says that, if ingested, the compound can lead to “liver, heart, or kidney damage, vomiting, stomach cramps, drowsiness, or death.”. Mr. Lauterbach’s pocket was said to contain a box and a half of matches, more than enough chemical to, when leached out onto the cake slice, kill.
By the 1870s, cakes similar to those we enjoy today were already the norm thanks to 19th century developments such as baking powder and baking soda, the wider—and cheaper—availability of sugar, and advancements in oven technology. That said, a sponge cake in 1875 would most likely have been exactly like a modern version: soft and sweet but still relatively quick to dry out and go stale. It was suspected that Mr. Lauterbach had slipped a slice of cake into the same jacket pocket where he carried his often used tobacco and matches, then set aside the jacket for several weeks. The time that elapsed allowed the persistent damp weather to soften the match heads, expelling their poisonous contents onto the dry cake which soaked it up. Why both John Henry and Lizzie did not take offense to the taste and texture of the aged cake, we will never know.
Though the culprit had been determined, attempts were still made to find the source of the cake, the Sun stating “the fact it was in slices would seem to confirm the idea that it was given to him,” but those proved fruitless. John Henry’s death certificate is missing from the records but Elizabeth Eichman’s states her suffering lasted for a duration of five hours and notes “poisoned accidentally” as the cause of death. She was buried December 23, 1875 in Western Cemetery.
Cities change, and the rooms where they passed, above the shoe shop and across the street at Ferdinand’s confectionary shop on the NW corner of West Baltimore and Poppleton, are long-since gone. 680 West Baltimore Street is now a building housing the University of Maryland School of Medicine. And at the NW corner of West Baltimore and Poppleton? Interestingly enough, what stands there now is the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Wow! What a fascinating and sad piece of cake history!