Dr. Tilghman Answorth Howard Lowe, the person who first started writing NEQUA, died in Topeka, Kansas on January  3, 1894. That is six or seven years before the book he is credited with writing was actually published and placed on sale to the public. NEQUA was supposed to be serialized in a publication, a "magazine" by the same name as the book. Only four issues of that "magazine" were published. The third issue was actually a double issue which in addition to a chapter of NEQUA it reported on the Co-Operative Congress which was held in Topeka on April 9-11, 1896.

It would be three years, in April of 1899 before Equity Newspaper would be started which restarted the serialization of Dr. Lowe's book. Finally in 1900 the book is placed on sale.

Somewhere I found a notation which listed Mastoiditis as the cause of death. I have lost the citation which mentioned Mastoiditis as contributing to Dr. Lowe's demise.  

Seeing that was a real shock for me. I had been reading another manuscript that had come into my hands. That manuscript resulted in my  taking a look at the personal history  of one of my distant relatives.  A distant relatives who committed suicide, died as a result of the constant pain which increased to a level where his answer to life was death. What really drove this home in my brain was the fact that this distant relative was a preacher, a very well respected pastor. One of those guys who remind us that we do not have any reason to decide to take another persons life and that it is totally forbidden to escape by ending our own.  His constant pain which drove him to suicide was caused by  Mastoiditis.

So finding Mastoiditis as contributing to Dr. T. A. H. Lowe demise pushed me into a real funk. In today's world we have no idea what Mastoiditis is or what the symptoms are like  and no comprehension of what was or wasn’t the treatment in 1900. I don’t think we have any idea of what a simple diagnosis  like that inferred to people of  one hundred years ago.  The prognosis was a down hill slide into insanity and suicide.

One hundred years ago, Mastoiditis, before all of the esoteric pain killers and pain blockers were available  which we rely on today was probably considered a death sentence. People could not stand the constant pain, the attempts to reduce the inflammation were minimal and very few recovered. 

Dr. Tilghman Answorth Howard Lowe was buried in Topeka in an unmarked grave .