A quiz question · hard
What did 1961 chemical analysis of Napoleon's hair find?
Sten Forshufvud's 1961 neutron-activation analysis found arsenic at about 38 ppm. The source is contested — deliberate poisoning by Montholon, or vapour from arsenic-pigmented Scheele's Green wallpaper at Longwood.
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The Former Emperor of the French Who Spent His Last Five and a Half Years on a Volcanic South Atlantic Island and Was Possibly Poisoned With Arsenic Napoleon Bonaparte arrived at Saint Helena on 15 October 1815 as a British prisoner. He spent the next five and a half years at the inland house of Longwood, dictating his memoirs and quarrelling with the British governor Hudson Lowe. He died on 5 May 1821 of what the contemporary autopsy called stomach cancer. The 1961 chemical analysis of his hair found arsenic at approximately 100 times normal levels. The arsenic source has never been securely identified.
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