Arthur the Egg Man

Perhaps now, we have some indication why Arthur Griffith, Milford's famed calculating prodigy, died of a stroke at an early age. Here's an excerpt from an article about Arthur from the New York Times Sunday Magazine, February 27, 1910:

Eggs are his staple article of diet. Recently he sat down to dinner in a New York cafe. His manager ordered a steak, &c. handing the menu card to the calculator. Griffith, scanning it over, raised his head, and in a loud voice asked for "six fried eggs, straight up." He himself does not know what that "straight up" means.

The whole article is available at the New York Times online archives.

Another Piece of Evidence in the Arthur Griffith Case

While going through some family photos and papers, I went through a small ledger book which my grandfather kept. One entry in particular, for April 15, 1918, caught my eye. Grandpa received 30 cents in drill (probably referring to a device for planting seeds) rent from H. Griffith, who was no doubt Harvey Griffith, father of Arthur (Pooze) Griffith, famed Milford calculating prodigy. So here is more evidence that my grandfather knew Pooze Griffith's family.

Another Episode in the Strange Case of Arthur Griffith

I just received a parcel of old photographs my sister Diane had stored in the crawl space of her house. Alas, many of the old pictures, which include a number of tintypes, have no identification on them, and I have no idea who the subjects are. The most fascinating picture in the lot is the one shown above--a small picture pasted on cardboard which bears the holes of being tacked up somewhere at some time. The photo is undated, but on the back, in my grandfather Lee Cory's handwriting, is written, "Mrs. Harvey (Etta) Griffith." I know from my research of Arthur F. Griffith, the calculating prodigy discussed in earlier posts, that his parents were Harvey and Etta. Apparently, my grandfather knew the family well enough to have a picture of one of them in his possession. Oh, if only he would have written about them in his journals, instead of endless descriptions of cutting wood and how many times he chewed each mouthful of food (at least for a time he was a devotee of "Fletcherizing", a practice promoted by Horace Fletcher, who believed chewing each mouthful of food 45 times was the pathway to good health)! But he didn't, and so I can only regret that he is no longer around to ask.

I also find it a little spooky that this picture found its way to me, perhaps the one living human being with the greatest interest in and knowledge of Arthur Griffith.

This picture of Arthur appeared in the book by Lindley and Bryan. I assume it was a publicity still that was preautographed and handed out as he toured the country. Sort of reminds me of the often-reproduced photo of Blind Lemon Jefferson with the inscription "Cordially yours, Blind Lemon Jefferson" very neatly written across the bottom. If he was blind, how did Lemon Jefferson write so legibly?

Arthur Griffith Update

Having found myself guilty of promulgating misinformation, I have put an addendum on my post, "Pooze the Prodigy" of August 24. I have discovered two books, On the Psychology of Learning a Life Occupation, by Bryan, Lindley, and Harter, and The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies Past and Present, by Steven B. Smith. Both books have filled in some of the gaps in my knowledge of Arthur Griffith, and human calculators in general.

Pooze the Prodigy

On a farm southwest of my hometown, Milford, Indiana, on July 30, 1880, Arthur F. Griffith was born. Somewhere along the line, for unknown reasons, he acquired the nickname of Pooze. I tried to find a definition of this word, and all I could find was in an online urban dictionary, which defined pooze as either the anus or the female genitalia. I doubt that those meanings applied in the late 19th century. Like most of us from Milford, Arthur might have lived in relative obscurity except for one inexplicable trait. He was a mathematical prodigy. He was able to count to 25,000 at age five, and memorized the multiplication tables through 130. He developed 47 methods of multiplication, 6 methods each for division and addition, and one for subtraction. He could tell you the date of Easter Sunday for any year in the 20th century. He was able to extract cube roots from numbers of 6 figures in seconds. He could watch a train of 100 cars go by on the Big Four tracks in Milford, and memorize the numbers painted on the sides. Arthur had no talent for nonmathematical subjects and didn't go to school beyond the eighth grade. So amazing were his abilities that he was studied by scientists at universities including Indiana University and Yale. His case was presented to the International Psychological Congress in Paris in 1900.

His head was so large, he had to have his hats custom made.

At one point, he said he would publish a book of this methods, but never did. He toured as a vaudeville act, and in 1902 was sentenced to 30 days in the Osceola County, Michigan jail, for failure to pay a boarding house bill. In 1907, he was working as a blacksmith's helper in St. Louis. He became so upset when he wasn't paid for the work he did, he was declared insane and put in the city hospital. He recovered, and was released after a period of observation. He never married, and when he wasn't touring or being studied at a university, he lived with his parents on the same farm where he was born.

Arthur had a history of epilepsy. Were some of his strange behaviors due to a brain lesion? For that matter, was there some structural "defect" of his brain that gave him his incredible mathematical abilities? We'll never know. He died in 1911, at age 31, in Springfield, Massachusetts, presumably on tour. The cause of death was apoplexy, which nowadays would be called a stroke. Perhaps he had a vascular malformation of the brain which ruptured. Again, I can only speculate. Thirty-one was pretty young to have a stroke, even in 1911.

One reason I'm posting this is that there is virtually nothing about dear old Pooze online, and I don't want to see such an amazing character forgotten. So now my vast audience knows his story.

ADDENDUM - 9/11/06:

I have found some more source material and need to correct a couple things in the original post: First, Arthur did publish a book of his methods, entitled The Easy and Speedy Reckoner in 1901. Copies still exist in the Library of Congress and in the Math Library at the University of Illinois. BTW, http://www.worldcat.orgis a great web site that tells you where books are located beginning with libraries closest to your zip code. Second, although Arthur had epilepsy, his seizures started after an unspecified illness at age 7, after he had started to display his calculating abilities, so the two weren't related. Third, he should be called a mental calculator rather than a math prodigy, as he didn't understand or have an interest in learning algebra. He was blessed with a fantastic memory and developed many calculating shortcuts.