Napoleon Bonaparte, ruler of France from 1799 until 1815, was killed not by a British assassination, but by the bad food he ate while on campaign, according to researchers.
Credit: Wikipedia
PARIS: Napoleon was killed not by a British assassination, but by dreadful French food, according to a new study.
Nearly 186 years after his death, a team of U.S. pathologists has cleared Britain of the calumny that it murdered Napoleon, declaring instead that l'empereur was felled by stomach cancer - and French military food was a possible cause.
In the latest twist in a long-running medical saga, the research team reassessed Napoleon's clinical history, the original autopsy and other documents, and compared this evidence with data from 135 gastric cancer patients.
In the January issue of the British journal Gastroenterology and Hepatology they report no evidence to support the enduring myth in France that the perfidious British poisoned Napoleon while he was exiled on St. Helena, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.
These dark suspicions have endured for nearly two centuries, in part nourished by the discovery that locks of hair cut from Bonaparte after his death contained arsenic that was between seven and 38 times normal levels.
Instead, the U.S. team confirms that the official autopsy, which concluded stomach cancer was the cause of death, was right. The post-mortem was a thorough and detailed examination carried out by Bonaparte's personal doctor, Francesco Antommarchi, in the presence of five British physicians.
The autopsy found a huge tumour that ran at least 10 centimetres down the side of Napoleon's stomach. It also came across 'enlarged and hardened' gastric lymph nodes - indicators, according to the study, that this cancer was in an advanced, tertiary stage.
The study also examined Napoleon's family medical history and diet, and reported scant evidence that Napoleon had a genetic predisposition to cancer. According to the team, the likelihood is that the disease developed, as is common today, from a stomach ulcer - perhaps exacerbated by the bad food he ate while on campaign with his army.
"The risk might have been further increased by his diet, which probably included salt-preserved foods, thoroughly roasted meats and few fresh fruits and vegetables - standard fare for long military campaigns," said the study.
Even today, "patients with such tumours have a notoriously poor prognosis," reported the study. "Even if the former emperor had been released or had escaped from his island prison of St. Helena before his death in 1821, his terminal condition would have prevented him from having a further major role in the theatre of European history," it added.
Irrespective of the cause of his death, a small but vocal group in France is campaigning for Napoleon's corpse, buried beneath the gilt dome of the Invalides military hospital in Paris, to be disinterred and submitted for a DNA test. They believe the British swapped bodies, sending France a Bonaparte lookalike in a final act of Anglo-Saxon treachery.
First it was freedom fries, now this
Is this study about Napolean or a very devious attempt by the U.S. to undermine France's reputation as a culinary giant?
Escargo espionage?
Perhaps he was fed a crack team of cancer-inducing kamakazi ninja snails.
Vive le France
Ce n'est pas drôle
:-)
Food
He was not eating "French Food", he was eating army rations.
That was a slanted headline if I ever saw one.
French army rations
Army rations are food, and the rations were French; how is that not "French food"? Your argument doesn't hold.
I think it's ironic considering that it was Napoleon who supposedly made the prescient obeservation that "To be effective, an army relies on good and plentiful food" (often repeated as "An army marches on its stomach").
And then then he gets stomach cancer from it.
slanted headline
Please note, the headline says "French food," not "French cuisine." But on the whole, one cannot confuse army rations with real food, no matter whose army it is! That just points up the difference between pure calories and actual nutrient value. Hmmm, this is sounding familiar....fast food, anyone?
Thats not True
Napoleon was killed by an British Assassination not by terrible FRENCH FOOD.
FRENCH FOOD SUCKS but it isnt SUCKY enough to KILL him. So take a hike.
lol Plz reply
Napoleon was killed by
Napoleon was killed by aliens that kidnapped him, shoved a probe up his kazoo, and injected cancer into his stomach. Afterwards the aliens flew over France and dumped mind altering gas over the whole country that made them think Napoleon was assassinated by the British.
And that is a FACT.
agreed
I agree with this idea that it is a slightly twisted subject. By views on it are that naming in "french food" is suggesting that it is going up against, as someone said, the culture of French food. So croissant, baguette, les cargos etc. And actually what should be said is that Napolean was killed by poor army rations. Which at the time were common in most armies across Europe and the world.
Jez. 14