HOW DID NAPOLEON DIE??

NAPOLEANS DEATH

Even though the postmortem showed stomach cancer, rumours spread that the exiled French emperor had not died of natural causes. The controversy .. ..

Bonaparte was first treated on St. Helena by an Irishman named Dr.O'MEARA.He discribed the symptoms of the patient as : swollen gums with hole , insomnia, swollen legs, hot flushes and attackes of migraine.

He stated that Napoleon suffered from mild scurvy due to unbalanced diet.

Following his defeat at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, French emperor Napolean Bonaparte (born 1769) was sent into exile on the tiny island of St.HELENA in the South Atlantic.

Napoleaon spent five years on the british ruled island before he died on May5,1821.

During his exile Napoleaon's health declined steadily.Since September 1819. Bonaparte had been under the cure of DR. ANTOMMARCHI. The doctor had performed a postmortem, observed by five british doctors.He confirmed that the emperor had died of STOMACH CANCER.But many did not believe the official post mortem, and, until a few years ago, rumour prevailed that he died of ARSENIC POISONNING.

UNEXPLAINED INCONSISTENCIES

However, RENE MAURY , a modern French scientist described the symptoms as those of arsenic poisoning. Forensic toxicologists refuted the statement.

Maury put forth another argument, that pointed that Napoleon's body had not decomposed in the coffin even in 1840 (arsenic delays decomposition of the dead body).

The problem with this thoery was that the damp condition of St.Helena could have slowed down the decmposition process.

In the early 1960s, tests were carrried out on Napoleon's hair samples.The results shot down the arsenic theory. A second round of testing in 1994 revealed arsenic in small quantities.The poison could have come from food and water on St.Helena.

POSSIBLE SUSPECTS

1. An agent of the Bourbons , the french royal family, who were restored to the throne in 1814 , and owed this gain to Napoleon's defeat.

2. British doctors, who could have easily poisoned the emperor.

3.COUNT de MONTHOLON , responsible for the house hold of the emperor , however was the real suspect according to Maury.According to the emperor's will he stood to receive large sum of money.

CONCLUSION

In October, 2005, a document was unearthed in Scotland that presented an account of the autopsy, which again seems to confirm Antommarchi's conclusion.More recent analysis of the etiology and pathogenesis of Napoleon's illness also suggests that Napoleon's illness was a sporadic gastric carcinoma of advanced stage.

The original post-mortem examination carried out by Francesco Antommarchi Napoleon died of stomach cancer without knowing Napoleon’s father had died of stomach cancer. concluded.

An extensive 2007 study found no evidence of arsenic poisoning in the organs, such as hem­or­rhag­ing in the lin­ing in­side the heart, and also concluded that stomach cancer was the cause of death.