Weird Tales/Volume 2/Issue 4/World-Famed "Blue Man" Dies

World-Famed "Blue Man" Dies

FRED WALTERS, whose bright blue skin made him a sumptuous living for many years as a "freak," died in Bellevue hospital, New York, the other day from heart disease.

Physicians at the institution made a careful examination of Walters' body and discovered to their amazement that not only his skin, but all his organs and tissues, including brain, heart and muscles, were of the same brilliant color.

The coloring, according to doctors, was due to argyria and chronic silver poisoning. Some forty years ago Walter is said to have worked in a silver mine in Australia. If the report is correct it is probable that while at the mine Walters breathed into his body nitrate of silver, which turned him blue.

Walters is survived by his widow and a six-year-old daughter. He was an officer in the Seventeenth regiment, Duke of Cambridge's own Lancers, and saw extensive service in India. In maneuvers he was thrown and his horse fell on him. A theory expressed by European scientists was that this fall was responsible for his coloring. Prof. Verscher, of Berlin, after a thorough examination, said he believed the coloring was caused by the opening of a small valve in the heart, caused by the shock when the horse fell on Walters' chest. The valve known as the foramen overale was said to be damaged so that the circulation of blood was impeded and the venous blood mixed with the arterial.