Why did Napoleon Bonaparte die? Conspiracy theories about deadly enemas, poisons, and cancer were resurrected even 200 years later

Even two hundred years after Napoleon Bonaparte’s death, several conspiracy theories exist as to exactly how he died on the windswept island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

The official conclusion, supported by an autopsy performed by the British who held Napoleon there in exile, is that he died on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, of stomach cancer.

Even then, many, and not just in France, were skeptical of this conclusion, so it is not surprising that various conspiracy theories have emerged, sometimes extremely colorful.

Poisoned?

One of the most vivid theories of the French conspiracy is the belief that Napoleon was slowly poisoned by the British or their trustee, Count Charles de Montholon, for being hired by French royalists who did not want the emperor to return home.

The scientific evidence is a chemical analysis of a haircut from a dead Napoleon haircut done in 2001, which showed a high concentration of arsenic.

In 2002, the poisoning theory was challenged in the French publication Science et Vie. The article presented the results of 19 hairs of Napoleon taken in 1805, before his first defeat in 1814, and also, in 1821, the results of an investigation on arsenic.

All samples contained high concentrations of arsenic, ranging from 15 to 100 parts per million (ppm). The normal concentration would be only 0.8 ppm and the maximum safe concentration would be 3 ppm.

The most likely source of arsenic in Napoleon’s hair is a hair loss remedy. The bald emperor probably used such products, and in the early 19th century they generally contained a lot of arsenic.

Deadly enema

Others blame jealous doctors for the emperor’s early death.

As forensic pathologist Steven Karch of the San Francisco Department of Medical Research said in 2004, doctors gave Napoleon an enema every day to help with stomach ailments and intestinal cramps.

This, along with regular doses of potassium antimony tartrate to induce vomiting, had to lead to a dangerous potassium deficiency.

This, in turn, could lead to heart rhythm disorders that interrupt blood flow to the brain.

Many blunt pants

In 2005, the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) validated the stomach cancer theory based on a study of the emperor’s pants.

Researchers at the Basel University Hospital and the University of Zurich studied 12 Napoleon trousers worn between 1800 and 1821 to determine his weight at death and weight changes in the last two decades of his life.

“Is that Napoleon [gyvenimo] At the end of the year, he lost more than 10 kg in weight, which would indicate a severe and progressive chronic disease … This is very much in line with the diagnosis of stomach cancer, ”the authors said.

The latest British joke?

In 1840, Napoleon’s remains were brought to Paris and buried in a large marble tomb under the gilded dome of the Cathedral of the Disabled.

But some people with lawyer Bruno Roy-Henry at the forefront believe that the British traded corpses to bid farewell to an old enemy to bid farewell to a completely unknown man.

At the time, some of the emperor’s most loyal supporters claimed that Napoleon had fled Saint Helena, as had his first exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba, and had started a new life in America.