"He's dead, Jim"
Posted on 01/17/2007 10:18:06 AM PST by Vote 4 Nixon
Putting to rest a 200-year-old mystery, scientists say Napoleon Bonaparte died from an advanced case of gastric cancer and not arsenic poisoning as some had speculated.
After being defeated by the British in 1815, the French Emperor was exiled to St. Helena—an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Six years later, at the age of 52, Bonaparte whispered his last words, “Head of Army!”
An autopsy at the time determined that stomach cancer was the cause of his death. But some arsenic found in 1961 in the ruler’s hair sparked rumors of poisoning. Had Napoleon escaped exile, he could have changed the balance of power in Europe; therefore murder speculations didn’t seem outlandish.
However, a new study—combining current medical knowledge, autopsy reports, Bonaparte’s physician memoirs, eyewitness accounts, and family medical histories—found that gastrointestinal bleeding was the immediate cause of death.
“This analysis suggests that, even if the emperor had been released or escaped from the island, his terminal condition would have prevented him from playing a further major role in the theater of European history,” said lead study author, Robert Genta of University of Texas Southwestern. “Even today, with the availability of sophisticated surgical techniques and chemotherapies, patients with gastric cancer as advanced as Napoleon’s have a poor prognosis.”
A four-inch lesion
The original autopsy descriptions indicated that Bonaparte’s stomach had two ulcerated lesions: a large one on the stomach and a smaller one that had pierced through the stomach wall and reached the liver.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
There's no mystery.... He died. He's tits up. He joined the bleedin' choir invisable. He is an ex-Emperor.
Bush's fault!
The mystery of Napoleon's death was resolved yesterday on another thread.
My great, great, great, great grandfather as his youngest Brother Jerome.
What happened to the body since 1961? It's been quite awhile but I saw on the History Channel that the body was remarkably well-preserved which arsenic poisoning does. Can the authorities just exhume the body and perform a modern day autopsy, rather than just read all the reports and make a determination followed by a press conference to announce the findings?
DUhhhh..........
I know why he died. His heart stopped.
That's a pretty orange screen on your link...
It is also interesting to wonder how this might have influenced the present decadence that portends the final destruction of both Russia and Western Europe.
I would think that if the body is still in a reasonably good state of preservation, the lesions could be examined microscopically and any doubt removed.
He's still around.
http://www.napoleonguide.com/tours_naptomb.htm
Napolean kept this novella in his breast pocket and periodically he would place his hand beneath his breast flap to touch this "touching tale!" thus he is always portrayed with his hand in his vest!
Werther and Stendahl's "Red and black" (le Rouge et Le Noir") are considered as the outstanding novels of the 19th Century! They rank with the Count of Monte Cristo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Three Musketeers on my reread list!!!
Guten Morgen!
It was rumored that Napoleon once said..."The only disadvantage to my being so short is that when I pass gas, I blow gravel in my shoes."
Social reforms? The guy who reinstituted slavery in the French West Indies?
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