Arsenic 'didn't kill Napoleon'

2008-02-11 21:10

Rome - A new study by Italian researchers concluded on Monday that Napoleon did not die of arsenic poisoning after finding that high levels of the poison were common in the hair of his contemporaries.

"It's not arsenic poisoning that killed Napoleon at Saint Helena," said the National Nuclear Physics Institute (INFN) after what it called a "new meticulous examination" of the emperor's hair, that of his first wife and his son, Napoleon II.

Theories abound about the cause of the emperor's death, aged 51 on May 5 1821, ranging from stomach cancer to arsenic poisoning.

In the study, the researchers inserted "capsules" containing locks of Napoleon's hair into the core of a small nuclear reactor at an INFN research lab in the northern city of Padua.

Italian and French museums contributed samples of hair from Napoleon as a child, others when he was in exile on the Italian island of Elba and others from the day he died on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena.

Not unusual at the time

Other hair samples came from Napoleon's first wife, Josephine, and his son, Napoleon II, by his second wife, Marie Josephine-Louise of Austria, while modern samples also were tested for comparison.

The institute said: "The research showed that the arsenic present in people's hair two centuries ago was 100 times more concentrated than the average level contained in the hair of today,".

"In the emperor and his contemporaries you find a level of arsenic that would be considered toxic today", but was not unusual at the time and reflected "a constant absorption" of the substance, the scientists said.

"The concentration of the substance would not be enough to cause Napoleon's death," they concluded.

- AFP