HOW NAPOLEON DIED.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 654, 25 March 1914, Page 2

HOW NAPOLEON DIED.

HIS CURIOUS ECCENTRICITIES,

Some interesting additions to the last chapter in the life of Napoleon—the five and a half years he spent on the island of St Helena—are made by Mr L. M. Shortt, the grandson of Dr Thomas Shortt, who was principal medical officer on the island during the last months of Napoleon's life. Two months before the death of "the little Corsican," which took place about ten minuces before six on he evening of May sth, 1821, Napoleon was told that a splendid mansion had been completed for him on the isla d, to which he could move at any time. Napoleon, however, regarded the building with horror, and would never go into it. Dr Shurtt, and those obliged to be on the spot had beds in the mansion, being its first inhabitants.

Napoleon developed many eccentricities before his death. It was with the greatest difficulty that he could be persuaded to take either food or medicine. Indeed, Dr Shortt had to invent a plan to make Napoleon take medicine without his knowing it. By this means' 1 the doctor managed to givß him ten grains of calomel, and ne derived advantage from the medicine, but his strength declined rapidly and his existence soon terminated. Dr Shortt mentions, in the English Review, that Napoleon would allow no stranger to approach him, and although he continned in consultation until Napoleon died, he did not see him until aftnr his dnath.

A po9t-mortem examination revealed the fact that Napoleon's body was a perfect mass of disease from cancer. His father when younger than himself of the same disease, so that it was hereditary, and unconnscted with thu climate or the mode of life he lad at St. Helena. There is little doubt that he have shared the same fate had he been seated on the throne of France. It is said that Napoleon's sister, the Princess Borghese, suffered from t~e same disease, and Bonaparte was anxious that his own symptoms should 03 fully ascertained for the purpose of being useful to his child, who might inherit from him the complaint.