Christmas Death #1: The Effect
It is Christmas Eve, 1908. In Long Island City, New York, William Babbington and his wife are enjoying a quiet evening at home. They are engaged in the most wholesome of holiday traditions: decorating their pine tree.
The couple works in tandem, reaching into the dense branches to hang baubles and clip on candles. It is a scene of domestic peace. The only interruption to their joy is minor — the tree is sharp. Both William and his wife prick their fingers on its pine needles. Perhaps they suck the droplets of blood away, laugh the minor accidents off, and finish their work.
But as the big day comes and goes, the Babbingtons are not able to enjoy their Christmas. It starts in the fingertips — a throbbing, rhythmic pain where the needles touched them. But it doesn’t stop there. The pain travels. It moves into their hands, climbs their arms. A fever takes hold.
Weeks pass. The festive season ends. But, given their injuries had seemed so minor, so inconsequential, the Babbingtons’ health is not improving. It is deteriorating. By late February, William is rushed to St. John’s Hospital. The doctors are baffled by the ferocity of the illness now ravaging his body. On Monday, 21st February, William dies.
His wife survives, but is bedridden, wracked with the same mysterious internal poison, facing high-risk surgeries with uncertain outcomes, and a life of severely impaired health.
Everyone who knows the couple is stunned. How could a simple evergreen tree turn into a lethal weapon? Did the tree harbour a venomous spider? Was it a rare, poisonous species of plant and not a pine tree at all? Or was the Babbingtons’ Christmas tree merely the vessel for something far more sinister?
Christmas Death #1: The Method
The “method” behind this holiday tragedy is a grim combination of pre-antibiotic vulnerability and the invisible terrors of the microscopic world.
The diagnosis given at the hospital was that both William and his wife had developed “felons” – an archaic medical term for a severe infection of the fingertip pulp.
The human fingertip is made of tiny, enclosed compartments of fat and tissue. When an infection — usually the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus — is injected deep into that pad (by, for example, a sharp thorn or pine needle), the infection has nowhere to go. The pressure builds intensely, cutting off blood flow. In 1909, penicillin was still decades away. And without antibiotics, the Babbingtons’ infection didn’t just stay in the finger. It caused necrosis — the death of the tissue — and then entered the bloodstream, causing sepsis, or blood poisoning.
So why were the needles on this Christmas tree so deadly?
There are two leading theories. The first is biological. The tree likely came from a farm with soil rich in a particularly virulent strain of bacteria, or perhaps animal waste. As such, the needles acted as dirty hypodermic syringes. When the Babbingtons pricked their fingers, they were essentially injecting a concentrated dose of deadly bacteria directly into their bloodstreams simultaneously.
The second theory is chemical. The Edwardian era was notorious for unregulated manufacturing. To keep cut trees looking green and fresh for the market, or to preserve wreaths, vendors sometimes sprayed them with chemical solutions. A popular green pigment of the time, known as Paris Green, contained copper arsenite — arsenic. Another preservative used was lead chromate.
If the tree had been treated with a chemical preservative to make it sellable, the pine needles would have delivered a double blow: a dose of chemical poison that damaged the tissue, preventing healing, followed immediately by the bacterial infection that killed them.
If only the Babbingtons had chosen an artificial tree instead, they might have been able to enjoy many more Christmases together.
Christmas Death #2: The Effect
It is early December 1904 in Dunedin, on the South Island of New Zealand. A family is preparing to celebrate Christmas. The tree is up and decorated, Christmas cards line the mantlepiece and the children eagerly await a visit from Santa. Instead, they get a visit from a killer.
As Christmas Day draws nearer, a member of the household — one of the children — begins to complain of a sore throat. A fever suddenly spikes. The glands in the child’s neck swell, creating a “bull neck” appearance. When the doctor forces the patient’s mouth open, he sees the terrifying signature of the killer: a thick, grey, leathery membrane growing across the tonsils and throat, slowly choking the life from its victim.
It is Diphtheria.
The medical authorities are stunned. Diphtheria is highly contagious, but usually only via direct contact with a coughing patient. This family has been isolated. There is no “Patient Zero” in their community. The Health Officer launches an investigation, tracing the known movements of the victim. Food, water, and local schools are all eliminated.
Dunedin was already on high alert, but relatively safe. However, 130 miles away in the town of Invercargill, an epidemic is raging. A “considerable number of cases” of the deadly respiratory disease have been reported there.
What could have caused the diphtheria outbreak to jump so unexpectedly from one town to another? And could a seemingly innocent Christmas tradition be behind it?
Christmas Death #2: The Method
The “method” behind this trick relies on the surprising resilience of a specific bacteria: Corynebacterium diphtheriae.
In the world of infectious disease, most germs are fragile. They die quickly when exposed to air or sunlight. If you sneeze on a table, for example, the flu virus won’t survive there for long. However, the bacteria that causes diphtheria is a “survivalist.”
Medical studies — both from the early 1900s and modern science — show that diphtheria bacteria can survive on “fomites.” A fomite is any inanimate object that can carry infection: clothes, toys, doorknobs and… paper. This specific bacterium has been known to survive in dried mucus on a surface for days, and in some instances, weeks.
The Health Officer’s investigation eliminated food, water, and local schools. When visiting the family, however, his eyes landed on the mantelpiece and he noticed a row of Christmas cards.
The Health Officer subsequently created a timeline that seemed impossible. He concluded that the infection did not come from direct contact with a person, but teleported 130 miles inside a paper envelope. A Christmas card itself was the assassin.
Here is the likely chain of events:
The sender in Invercargill was either sick themselves or was an asymptomatic carrier caring for a sick child. While sitting at their desk to write the card, they coughed or sneezed. Microscopic droplets of infected fluid landed on the card or the envelope.
Alternatively, and perhaps more disturbingly, the sender might have licked the envelope or the stamp while harbouring the bacteria in their throat.
The envelope was sealed, trapping the bacteria in a dark, dry environment—conditions this germ can tolerate. It travelled by train and coach to Dunedin. When the recipient opened it, they touched the contaminated paper.
The transfer was completed by a simple, unconscious human action. The recipient touched the card, and then touched their mouth, nose, or perhaps picked up something to eat with the contaminated hand.
The Health Officer’s conclusion, which sounded paranoid at the time, was actually a chillingly accurate deduction. The method wasn’t magic; it was a lesson in hygiene that the pre-Covid world was still learning.
© 2025, Lora Jones. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
