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Napoleon's syndrome
Friday October 17 2003
The Guardian


The idea that Napoleon died of poisonous vapours generated from his
wallpaper was one I considered in a Guardian article in April 1995 -
prior, I think, to the work of the Swedish scientist who gave the
theory credence (Napoleonic wars, G2, October 16).

It is certainly not, to coin a phrase, an off-the-wall theory. At the
end of the 19th century, a number of deaths in Britain, especially
infant deaths, were attributed to arsenic poisoning from wallpaper.
It was then called Gosio's disease. In 1904 the royal commission on
arsenical poisoning reported that many deaths probably went
undetected. As late as 1932, the syndrome killed two children in the
Forest of Dean.

I raised the point in an article about cot deaths, arguing that those
too were caused by poisonous vapours - in this case, generated by
fire retardent chemicals in bedding. If this was true, it was the
greatest environmental disaster of our lifetimes, but it was
successfully covered up by the multinationals and the scientific
establishment, which would have suffered enduring obloquy and
astronomical compensation claims had the theory been officially
accepted (see The Cot Death Cover-Up by Jim Sprott). In the years
since, the chemicals concerned have been quietly withdrawn.
Bob Woffinden
London
bobwoffinden@...

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