It may cause long term liver, kidney, and central nervous system damage.” There is new evidence that arsenic may also lead to heart disease or strokes. Some people have no immediate symptoms, but the exposure can cause many types of cancer or diabetes later on. The arsenic which remains is stored in the brain, bones, and tissue and continues to do serious damage. Arsenic poisoning is difficult to pin down because most of the arsenic leaves the body within three days of exposure. Arsenic can be inhaled, ingested or absorbed through contact. Different people respond differently, depending on how much exposure they get, and by what means. Let us review the symptoms of arsenic poisoning from various scientific reports.
There is even an anecdote about how Napoleon reached for his hat one day and a rat jumped out! There even was a British cartoon to that effect at the time. So there was rat poison everywhere around the imperial residence. Helena, especially where Napoleon lived at Longwood since the house was infested with them. However, rat poison was used in abundance at St. While arsenic was compounded in high doses to kill rats, it was also used in small doses since the time of Henry VIII to treat syphilis and other illnesses. Helena suffered from rat infestation, much like most populated areas at that time. In recent years the arsenic debate resurfaced when Ben Weider and Dr John Fournier proved conclusively that some of the hairs previously tested, with additional samples obtained by Dr Fournier allegedly from hair given to the Abbe Vignali right after Napoleon's death, contained “commercial” inorganic arsenic that was specifically compounded as rat poison, not the type normally found in nature. Therefore, from a scientific standpoint, there is no legitimate way to determine empirically that Napoleon was poisoned by arsenic and that this was the proximate cause of his death. And without exhuming Napoleon, there is no way to assure that the hairs submitted are really from the same person, or actually from Napoleon. Indeed, it would be necessary to exhume relatives of Napoleon to compare the DNA strands.
It also appears that no DNA tests were performed which would have indicated that the tested hairs were all from the same person, particularly important given that the levels of arsenic in the hair (all supposedly taken from Napoleon's head right after death) varied in each sample.
Only written provenance can give any assurance. The significance of the previously reported findings is that this hair did not come from a person who died from arsenic in the time period reported by the hairgrowth.”įurthermore, the hairs submitted by the various “collectors” could not be positively authenticated as coming from Napoleon. However, the FBI laboratory has no hair for comparison purposes for the time period of Napoleon. “The amount of arsenic is greater than normal background levels found in the hair of most people living today. In fact, after the FBI ran their tests on hair samples submitted by M. The average of natural arsenic in human hair is about 10/ppm. In fact, in each case the hairs examined were found to contain levels of arsenic ranging everywhere from 1.93 to 16.8 parts per million (“ppm”). To support the arsenic poisoning theory no fewer than seven strands of what is alleged to be Napoleon's hair have been examined by reputable forensic scientists and laboratories, including the FBI in the US, Harwell Nuclear Lab in the UK, and the “Slowpoke” reactor facility in Toronto. Since Napoleon's death on May 5, 1821, hundreds of books, papers, lectures, reports, and prognostications have been written on the subject, most of which extremely partisan and vehemently emotional. Which is true – are either correct, or perhaps neither? The autopsy reported that Napoleon died from a perforation of the stomach caused by cancer. For the record, Napoleon's grandfather, father, his brother Lucien, and three of his sisters also died from stomach cancer. On the death of a Great Man Like him, we should only feel deep concern and regret.”ĭepending upon which “camp” you follow, you either believe that Napoleon was poisoned with arsenic, probably by Count Montholon, or you accept the autopsy findings, signed off by no fewer than seven doctors in attendance, that indicate Napoleon expired ultimately from stomach cancer. “He was England's greatest enemy, and mine too but I forgive him everything.