Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

Question 74: What illness did Berkeley Cole die from?

Q.  What illness did Berkeley Cole have that lead to his death (in the movie Out of Africa)?

A. Berkeley Cole was said in the movie Out of Africa to have died of "blackwater fever." This is a form of malaria in which the kidneys excrete black urine because of severe blood breakdown.

The real Berkeley Cole died in Kenya of heart failure in 1925, at the age of 43. His heart trouble probably originated with rheumatic fever in his youth.

(A different friend of Karen Blixen, Erik von Otter, died of blackwater fever.)

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