Abstract
Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the island of St Helena in 1821 at the age of 51. An autopsy by his physician, Autommarchi, in the presence of Sir Thomas Reade, some staff officers and eight medical men revealed a cancerous growth of his stomach1. But mainly on the basis of high levels of arsenic detected in several samples of his hair2 it has been suggested, most recently by Hapgood and Weider3, that Napoleon was poisoned by arsenic. We have analysed a different sample of Napoleon's hair and find an almost normal arsenic content but elevated antimony.
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References
De Bourienne, L. A. F. Mem. Napoleon Bonaparte Vol 4, 427–428 (Grolier Society, London, 1885).
Smith, H., Forshufvud, S. & Wassen, A. Nature 194, 725–726 (1962).
Weider, B. & Hapgood, D. The Murder of Napoleon (Methuen, New York, 1982).
Smith, H. Analyt. Chem. 31, 1361–1363 (1959).
Takeuchi, T. et al. Radioanalyt. Chem. 70, 29–55 (1982).
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Lewin, P., Hancock, R. & Voynovich, P. Napoleon Bonaparte—no evidence of chronic arsenic poisoning. Nature 299, 627–628 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/299627a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/299627a0
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