It is 'a question of French historians' pride,' he said. Technical language in the report indicates that the doctors found a stomach tumor, he said, though they might not have recognized it as such.īen Weider, a Canadian who is president of the International Napoleonic Society, said the new theory is fueled in part by something other than objective historical research. Napoleon was also said to have suffered chronic urinary infection, dry cough and profuse night sweats.ĭi Costanzo said these symptoms closely matched those of a stomach cancer patient on whom he had operated.ĭi Costanzo also said he was the first to do a detailed analysis of an autopsy report. He died of stomach cancer.Īt a news conference in Paris, Jacques di Costanzo, a French gastroenterologist, said he reached this conclusion after studying an account of Napoleon's death written by Napoleon's last doctor, Francesco Antommarchi.Īntommarchi wrote that the deposed emperor experienced persistent and recurring violent upper abdominal pain, accompanied by vomiting, hiccups, chronic fatigue and loss of appetite. Subsequent analysis by the FBI and Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France, of hair samples taken from Napoleon's body found significant amounts of arsenic, strengthening the poisoning claim.īut late last year, physicians and scientists who reopened the case advanced a new theory.

It was a theory that gained currency in the early 1960s, after Sten Forshufvud, a Swedish dentist and toxicologist, followed his intuition after reading the diaries of a valet, Louis Marchand, who followed Napoleon to the island.įorshufvud was convinced that the symptoms that Marchand said the former emperor suffered shortly before his death - insomnia, weak and swollen legs, hair loss, spasms and permanent thirst - were all consistent with arsenic poisoning. But for decades, French schoolchildren have been taught that the collapse happened because Napoleon had been poisoned. The official cause was a cardiovascular collapse.

on May 5, 1821, while in exile on the South Atlantic island of St.

Films about him are made every few years, and visitors line up daily at his tomb.īut a new controversy has emerged over one unsettled aspect of Napoleon's history, the cause of his mysterious death at 5:49 p.m. Almost 182 years after the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, his name still evokes in France the splendor of the age of empire.

When did napoleon die