If you can see your name here, it is no good sign

March 28, 2024

R I P of the day

Arden John (b. 1930-10-26 / d. 2012-03-28)

He was a English playwright whose works tended to expose social issues of personal concern. He was a member of the Royal Society of Literature.

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Cumpanas
Ana (alias: Anna Sage). 1947-04-25

58

Born 1889-00-00. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Other

She died of liver ailment. Anna Sage died 58. She was the "woman in red" who 13 years ago pointed out Public Enemy John Dillinger to FBI men, who thereupon shot him dead. She died in Timisoara, Rumania, where she was deported in 1936 for running a brothel.

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Ford
Henry. 1947-04-07

84

Born 1863-07-30. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Stroke

Henry Ford took his last ride to Ford Cemetery in a Packard. On the night of his death the River Rouge had flooded the local power station and had left Ford's house without electricity. Before going to sleep Henry and his wife lit candles and oil lamps to light the house. Later that evening, just before dawn, Henry Ford, father of mass production and creator of the modern era, died in the same atmosphere as he had been born 83 years earlier, surrounded by candlelight.

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Hoess
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand. 1947-04-07

47

Born 1900-11-25. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

Höss (also spelled Höß, sometimes spelled in English as Hoess) was an SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel), and from 4 May 1940 to November 1943, the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, where it is estimated that more than a million people were murdered. Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922, the SS in 1934. He was hanged in 1947 following his trial at Warsaw.

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Collyer
Homer Lusk. 1947-03-21

66

Born 1881-11-06. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Accident

Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Wakeman Collyer (October 3, 1885 – c. March 9, 1947), known as the Collyer brothers, were two American brothers who became infamous for their bizarre natures and compulsive hoarding. For decades, the two lived in seclusion in their Harlem brownstone at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street) where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and myriad other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to crush intruders. In March 1947, both were found dead in their home surrounded by over 140 tons of collected items that they had amassed over several decades. Since the 1960s, the site of the former Collyer house has been a pocket park, named for the brothers.

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Janet
Pierre Marie Félix. 1947-02-24

88

Born 1859-05-30. Domain:Philosophy. Cause of death:Age

He was a pioneering French psychologist, philosopher and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory.

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Hecke
Erich. 1947-02-13

60

Born 1887-09-20. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Cancer

He was a German mathematician. He obtained his doctorate in Göttingen under the supervision of David Hilbert. Kurt Reidemeister and Heinrich Behnke were among his students. His early work included establishing the functional equation for the Dedekind zeta function, with a proof based on theta functions. The method extended to the L-functions associated to a class of characters now known as Hecke characters or idele class characters; such L-functions are now known as Hecke L-functions. He devoted most of his research to the theory of modular forms, creating the general theory of cusp forms (holomorphic, for GL(2)), as it is now understood in the classical setting. During the war, he fell ill from cancer and had to be operated. To spare him the rigors of post-war Germany, his Danish friends invited him to Copenhagen, where he died in 1947.

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Capone
Alphonse (alias: Scarface). 1947-01-25

48

Born 1899-01-17. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Other

In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta, a tough federal prison, but he was able to take control and obtain special privileges. He was then transferred to Alcatraz, where tight security and an uncompromising warden ensured that Capone had no contact with the outside world. Capone entered Alcatraz with his usual confidence, but his isolation from his associates, and the repeal of Prohibition, meant his empire was beginning to wither. He attempted to earn time off for good behavior by being a model prisoner and refusing to participate in prisoner rebellions. When Capone attempted to bribe guards he was sent to solitary confinement.
Though he adjusted relatively well to his new environment, his health declined as his syphilis (contracted as a youth) progressed, and he spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented. Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California, to serve his one-year misdemeanor sentence. He was released on November 16, 1939, spent a short time in a hospital, then returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida.
Capone's control and interests within organized crime had decreased rapidly after his imprisonment, and he was no longer able to run the Outfit after his release. He had lost weight, and his physical and mental health had declined, most noticeably with the onset of dementia. On January 21, 1947, Capone had an apoplectic stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia on January 24, and suffered a cardiac arrest the next day (possibly associated with the complications of third-stage neurosyphilis).

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Fields
William Claude (alias: W.C. Fields). 1946-12-25

66

Born 1880-01-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Other

Fields spent his last weeks in a hospital, where a friend stopped by for a visit and caught Fields reading the Bible. When asked why, Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes." In a final irony, W. C. Fields died in 1946 (from a stomach hemorrhage) on the holiday he claimed to despise: Christmas Day.
A notable quote regarding alcohol is attributed to Fields: "I can't stand water because of the things fish do in it."

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Langevin
Paul. 1946-12-19

74

Born 1872-01-23. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age

He was also noted for being an outspoken opponent of Nazism, and was removed from his post by the Vichy government following the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany. He was later restored to his position in 1944. He died in Paris in 1946, two years after living to see the Liberation of Paris.

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von Ribbentrop
Joachim. 1946-10-16

53

Born 1893-04-30. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Murder

Even in prison, Ribbentrop remained subservient to Hitler, stating "Even with all I know, if in this cell Hitler should come to me and say 'Do this!', I would still do it.".
During the trial, Ribbentrop rather unsuccessfully attempted to deny his role in the war. For example, during his cross-examination, the prosecution brought up claims that he (along with Hitler and Göring) threatened the leader of Czechoslovakia, Emil Hacha, with a "threat of aggressive action." The questioning resulted in the following exchange:
PROSECUTION: What further pressure could you put on the head of a country beyond threatening him that your Army would march in, in overwhelming strength, and your air force would bomb his capital?
RIBBENTROP: War, for instance.
While not recorded in the trial transcript, Göring was said to have remarked, after hearing these words, that Ribbentrop deserved to hang, if only for his stupidity.
At one point during the trial proceedings, US Army interpreter for the prosecution Richard Sonnenfeldt asked Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, Ribbentrop's second in command, how Hitler could have made him a high official. Weizsacker responded "Hitler never noticed Ribbentrop's babbling because Hitler always did all the talking".
Since Göring had committed suicide a few hours prior to the time of execution, Ribbentrop was the first politician to be hanged on the morning of October 16, 1946. After being escorted up the 13 steps to the waiting noose, Ribbentrop was asked if he had any final words. He calmly said: "God protect Germany. God have mercy on my soul. My final wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for the sake of peace, there should be understanding between East and West." As the hood was placed over his head, Ribbentrop added: "I wish peace to the world." After a slight pause the executioner pulled the lever, releasing the trap door Ribbentrop stood upon

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Sauckel
Fritz. 1946-10-16

52

Born 1894-10-27. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

He was a Nazi war criminal, who organized the systematic enslavement of millions from lands occupied by Nazi Germany. He was General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment from 1942 until the end of the war, after which he was tried and executed.

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Seyss-Inquart
Arthur. 1946-10-16

54

Born 1892-07-22. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German: Seyß-Inquart, [ˈartuːɐ̯ zaɪs ˈʔɪŋkvart]) was an Austrian Nazi politician who served as Chancellor of Austria in 1938 for two days before the Anschluss. His positions during Third Reich included "deputy governor to Hans Frank in the General Government of Occupied Poland, and Reich commissioner for the German-occupied Netherlands" including shared responsibility "for the deportation of Dutch Jews and the shooting of hostages". Seyss-Inquart was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. Inquart oversaw deportations, massacres and looting in Poland and the Netherlands. During World War I, Seyss-Inquart fought for the Austro-Hungarian Army with distinction. After the war he became a successful lawyer, and went on to join the governments of Chancellors Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg. In 1938, Schuschnigg resigned in the face of a German invasion, and Seyss-Inquart was appointed his successor. The newly installed Nazis proceeded to transfer power to Germany, and Austria subsequently became the German province of Ostmark, with Seyss-Inquart as its governor (Reichsstatthalter). During World War II, Seyss-Inquart served briefly as the Deputy Governor General in occupied Poland and, following the fall of the Low Countries in 1940, he was appointed Reichskommissar of the occupied Netherlands. He was a member of the SS and held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer. He instituted a reign of terror, with Dutch civilians subjected to forced labour and the vast majority of Dutch Jews deported and murdered. At the Nuremberg trials, Seyss-Inquart was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging.

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Frank
Hans Michael. 1946-10-16

46

Born 1900-05-23. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

Hans Michael Frank was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). He took part in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, and later became Adolf Hitler's personal legal adviser as well as the lawyer of the NSDAP. In June 1933 he was named as a Reichsleiter (national leader, Reich leader) of the party. In December 1934, Frank joined the Hitler Cabinet as a Reichsminister, Minister without Portfolio. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Frank was appointed Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories. During his tenure, he instituted a reign of terror against the civilian population and became directly involved in the mass murder of Jews. He engaged in the use of forced labour and oversaw four of the extermination camps. The policies of enslavement and extermination were later used extensively in the conquered territories of the Soviet Union. Frank remained head of the General Government until its collapse in early 1945. After the war, Frank was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in October 1946.

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Goering
Hermann. 1946-10-15

53

Born 1893-01-12. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide

Though he defended himself vigorously, he was sentenced to death by hanging. The judgment stated that:
"There is nothing to be said in mitigation. For Goering was often, indeed almost always, the moving force, second only to his leader. He was the leading war aggressor, both as political and as military leader; he was the director of the slave labour programme and the creator of the oppressive programme against the Jews and other races, at home and abroad. All of these crimes he has frankly admitted. On some specific cases there may be conflict of testimony, but in terms of the broad outline, his own admissions are more than sufficiently wide to be conclusive of his guilt. His guilt is unique in its enormity. The record discloses no excuses for this man."
Göring dispatched an appeal in which he said he would accept the court's death penalty if they allowed him to be shot as a soldier instead of hanged as a common criminal, but the court members refused to allow him this honor. Defying the sentence imposed by his captors, he committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was supposed to be hanged. Where Göring obtained the cyanide, and how he had managed to hide it during his entire imprisonment at Nuremberg, remains unknown.

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Muraire
Jules (alias: Raimu). 1946-09-20

63

Born 1883-12-18. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Heart attack

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Jeans
James Hopwood. 1946-09-16

69

Born 1877-09-11. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age

He was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician.

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Goeth
Amon. 1946-09-13

37

Born 1908-11-12. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

After the war, the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków found Göth guilty of murdering tens of thousands of people. He was hanged on September 13, 1946, aged 37, not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp he had commanded. At his execution, Göth's hands were tied behind his back. The executioner twice miscalculated the length of rope necessary to hang Göth, and it was only on the third attempt that the execution was successful.
In 2002, an interview book with Göth's daughter, Monika, was published in Germany under the name Ich muß doch meinen Vater lieben, oder? (But I must love my father, mustn't I?). For the first time, Göth's daughter spoke of her mother, who unconditionally glorified her father until faced with his role in the Holocaust, and had committed suicide after giving an interview in the 1980s.

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Wells
Herbert George. 1946-08-13

80

Born 1866-09-21. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:cancer (liver)

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Gaumont
Léon. 1946-08-09

82

Born 1864-05-10. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Age

He was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry.

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Johnson
John Arthur (alias: the Galveston Giant). 1946-06-10

68

Born 1878-03-31. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident

"Jack" Johnson was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). Among the period's most dominant champions, Johnson remains a boxing legend, with his 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries dubbed the "fight of the century". According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth". Transcending boxing, he became part of the culture and the history of racism in America. Johnson died in a car crash on U.S. Highway 1 near Franklinton, North Carolina after racing angrily from a diner that refused to serve him. He was taken to the closest black hospital, Saint Agnes Hospital in Raleigh.

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Weiss
Martin. 1946-05-29

40

Born 1905-06-03. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Martin Gottfried Weiss, alternatively spelled Weiß was the Commandant of Dachau concentration camp in 1945. He also served as the commandant of Neuengamme concentration camp from April 1940 until September 1942. Weiss was born in Weiden in der Oberpfalz. He was tried during the Dachau Trials of 15 November — 13 December 1945, found guilty, and was executed on 29 May 1946.

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Petiot
Marcel. 1946-05-25

49

Born 1897-01-17. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

He was a French doctor who was convicted of multiple murders after the discovery of the remains of 26 people in his home in Paris after World War II. He is suspected of killing more than sixty victims during his life.
During World War I, Petiot was drafted into the French infantry in January 1916. In Aisne he was wounded and gassed and exhibited more symptoms of mental breakdown. He was sent to various rest homes, where he was arrested for stealing army blankets and jailed in Orleans. In a psychiatric hospital at Fleury-les-Aubrais he was again diagnosed with various mental ailments but was returned to the front in June of 1918. He was transferred three weeks later after he shot himself in the foot, but was attached to a new regiment in September. A new diagnosis was enough to get him discharged with a disability pension.
Petiot went on trial on March 19, 1946, facing 135 criminal charges. René Floriot acted for the defense, against a team consisting of state prosecutors and twelve civil lawyers hired by relatives of Petiot's victims. Petiot taunted the prosecuting lawyers, and claimed that various victims had been collaborators or double agents, or that vanished people were alive and well in South America under new names. He admitted to killing just nineteen of the twenty-seven victims found in his house, and claimed that they were Germans and collaborators - part of a total of 63 "enemies" killed. Floriot attempted to portray Petiot as a resistance hero, but the judges and jurors were unimpressed. Petiot was convicted of 26 counts of murder, and sentenced to death. On May 25, Petiot was beheaded, after a stay of a few days due to a problem in the release mechanism of the guillotine.

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Keynes
John. 1946-04-21

63

Born 1883-06-05. Domain:science (economics). Cause of death:Heart attack

Keynes was ultimately a successful investor, building up a substantial private fortune. He was nearly wiped out following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, but he soon recouped his fortune.

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Alekhine
Alexander. 1946-03-24

54

Born 1892-11-01. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Unknown

Fourth World Chess Champion.
During World War II, Alekhine played in several tournaments held in Germany or German-occupied territory. In 1941, a number of anti-semitic articles entitled Aryan and Jewish Chess appeared under his name in the Pariser Zeitung. Extensive investigations have not yielded conclusive evidence of the authenticity of the articles.
While planning for a World championship match against Botvinnik, he died in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal. His death, the circumstances of which are still a matter of debate, is thought to have been caused either by his choking on a piece of meat, or by a heart attack.

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Frossard
Ludovic-Oscar. 1946-02-11

57

Born 1889-03-05. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Unknown

In 1918, he was elected general secretary of the Section française de l'Internationale ouvričre (SFIO) socialist party. Frossard took a trip to Bolshevist Russia in 1920 and became a supporter of Leninism, campaigning for his party to join the Comintern. The Leninists inside the PSU led to the party's split at the December 25 Congress of Tours. Frossard became general secretary of the new French Communist Party (PCF), while Léon Blum led the SFIO. Nonetheless, Frossard soon became disenchanted with the PCF's rejection of pluralism - he resigned on January 1, 1923, and joined the SFIO himself.
Frossard was made Minister of Public Works and Transmissions in the First Government of Philippe Pétain, created after the Battle of France and the beginning of the Nazi German occupation of France. After the signing of the armistice, he refused to be part of any Vichy France executive, but worked as a journalist. Suspicion of collaboration with the enemy led to an enquiry into his activities at the end of World War II, but his name was soon cleared.

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Gralton
James. 1945-12-29

59

Born 1886-04-17. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Cancer (stomach)

James Gralton was born in the townland of Effrinagh, Parish of Kiltoghert, about six miles from Carrick-on-Shannon in County Leitrim. His parents were Micheal Gralton and Alice Campbell. There were four girls and three boys in the family: Winnie, Mary Ann, Alice and Maggie Kate were the girls, and the boys were Jimmy, Charles and a little boy who died young. Gralton was reared on a small farm of about twenty-five acres of bad land, which was surrounded by some good land. The people were too poor to buy fertiliser for the crops so they had to burn some of the topsoil, and this left the land poor and shallow. Gralton emigrated to the United States in 1909, but returned to Ireland to fight in the Irish War of Independence, and later in 1932 to look after his mother, where he led the Revolutionary Workers' Group in Leitrim, a predecessor of the Communist Party of Ireland. He ran a dance hall in Effrinagh where he arranged free events where he expounded his political views. There were violent protests against these dances, led by Catholic priests, which culminated in a shooting incident. Following this, on 9 February 1933, he was arrested, and later deported to the United States of America, on the basis that he was an alien. This led to public protests organised by the Irish Republican Army. Shortly before his death from stomach cancer, in New York, he married Bessie Cronogue (d. 1975), a woman from Drumsna, County Leitrim, only a few miles from where he had been brought up.

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Patton
George. 1945-12-21

60

Born 1885-11-11. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Accident

It was in World War II that he truly made his mark. Patton commanded both corps and armies as a general in North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations. Near the end of the Sicilian campaign, Patton jeopardized his career by slapping a soldier recuperating at a hospital. The well-publicized incident caused General Eisenhower to relieve him of command. Thus, instead of playing a major part in the invasion of Normandy, he was relegated to being a decoy. However, he was later given command of the U.S. Third Army and ably led it in breaking out of the hedgerows of Normandy and across France. When a surprise major German offensive resulted in American units being surrounded in Bastogne, Patton rapidly disengaged his army from fighting in another sector in order to relieve the key town.
Patton often got into trouble with his outspokenness and strong opinions. In addition to the slapping incident, towards the end of the war, he voiced his detestation and mistrust of the Soviets and his desire to fight them. He has also been criticized for sending an ill-fated rescue mission for his son-in-law, held in a prison camp deep behind enemy lines.
On December 9, 1945, a day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident. He and his chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, were on a day trip to hunt pheasants in the country outside Mannheim. Their 1938 Cadillac Model 75 was driven by PFC Horace Woodring (1926 - 2003), with Patton sitting in the back seat on the right side, with General Gay on his left, as per custom. At 11:45 near Neckarstadt (Käfertal), a 2˝ ton GMC truck driven by Technical Sergeant Robert L. Thompson hit the car containing the general head-on. According to the book Unexplained Mysteries of World War II, as the crash was at a railway crossing and the vehicles were just starting up, this means the crash was at no more than 20 miles per hour.
At first the crash seemed minor, the vehicles were hardly damaged, no one in the truck was hurt, and Gay and Woodring were uninjured. However, Patton was leaning back with trouble breathing. The general had been thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism several days later.

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Agnelli
Giovanni (alias: Giovanni Agnelli (senior)). 1945-12-16

79

Born 1866-08-13. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Age

Was an Italian entepreneur, who founded Fiat car manufacturing in 1899.
Got compromised with Mussolini.
For his grandson, see Gianni Agnelli.

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Charpy
Georges. 1945-11-25

80

Born 1865-09-01. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age

He invented the test called "Mouton-Charpy" (Charpy Impact test).

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Laval
Pierre. 1945-10-15

62

Born 1883-06-28. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Murder

Charged with treason and violating state security, Laval was tried and after being found guilty, despite vigorously defending himself in the first part of his trial, was sentenced to death. After a failed attempt at suicide (the cyanide had lost its full potency), he was executed by firing squad at Fresnes prison, near Paris, half-unconscious and vomiting.

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