At the End, What Kind of a Man?

Abstract

Henri Poincaré died on July 17, 1912. During his last year he had been very active, travelling to international conferences and fulfilling many other obligations. On June 26, a few weeks before he died, he gave the public lecture on moral education presented in Chapter 12. The prostate problems that he had experienced at the 1908 international conference in Rome became more serious, and he was advised to have an operation. On Saturday, July 6, he was at a faculty meeting discussing group theory; after that meeting, he told his friend Paul Appell, “Tomorrow I will enter the hospital.” The operation took place on July 9 and seemed to have been successful; family members and friends rejoiced and were reassured. A week later an embolism suddenly terminated his life.