The Hindu : International : 'Napoleon killed by bungling doctors'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 24, 2004

International

International

'Napoleon killed by bungling doctors'

London: There was no plotting by royalists, no arsenic and no murder. Instead, Napoleon Bonaparte was killed by a group of incompetent doctors and too many uncomfortably large enemas, according to a new study. One of the world's most enduring conspiracy theories may be laid to rest by a banal explanation if research conducted by the San Francisco medical examiner's department proves accurate. An autopsy done straight after Napoleon's death by his personal physician revealed that he had died from stomach cancer. But over the decades, historians have disputed this explanation, suggesting either that the exiled leader might have died from toxic ingredients in his hair ointment, or that he was killed by his confidant, Charles de Montholon, as part of a plot to prevent his returning to seize power in France. In attempts supposedly to cure him, doctors gave Napoleon regular doses of antimony potassium tartrate to make him vomit. But this treatment would have depleted his potassium levels, and may have caused a lethal heart condition known as torsades de pointes in which rapid heartbeats disrupt the blood flow to the brain, the scientists say. The doctors' decision to administer a purgative of 600mg of mercuric chloride (five times the usual amount) on May 3, 1821, would have further reduced Napoleon's potassium levels — and may have been fatal. He died two days later, aged 51. — Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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