Napoleon's Health Fossil Notes
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NATURE. VOL. 222., MAY 3. 1969 497 too, in one way or another, have to be subsidized as food stomach were manifest. Chaplin considered the diseas'' producers. supervened on a peptic ulcer. Kemble regards it as a This book is good for us all-for anthropologists, primary growth. Sir Hudson Lowe tampered with the, economists and sociologists, not to speak of politicians and drafts of the doctors' reports and insisted that all reference administrators. Above all, it demonstrates tho awe to enlargement of the liver must be omitted. His real inspiring interconnectedness of modern institutions, and attitude towards Napoleon's ill health is giYen in Cor the consequent many sided intractability of the problems roquer's diary. He did not believe, almo'!t up to the last which arise. F. G. BAILEY possible moment, that Napoleon was really ill, and dis agreed with Arnott's subsequent reports that Napoleon's health and condition foretold imminent death. James Kemble is to be congratulated on the further NAPOLEON'S HEALTH service he has rendered to general and medical historians. St Helena during Napoleon's Exile The book is well illustrated and well produced. Correquer's Diary. By James Kemble. Pp. ix+ 297 + 16 ARTHUR MACNALTY plate<O. (Heinemann: London, February 1969.) 55s. GIDEON CoRREQUER (1781-1841) was a bachelor and came of Huguenot stock. He entered the army and FOSSIL NOTES a.tta.ined the rank of major. He received various foreign orders, was a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Order Notes and Comments on Vertebrate Paleontology and was promoted to Jieutcnant-colonol. He retired after By Alfred Sherwood Romer. Pp. viii+ 304. (Univers;ty Napoleon's death in 1821. of Chicago Press : Chicago and London, J:<'ebruary Sir Hudson Lowe invited him to be his aide-de-camp 1969.) 63s. and acting military secretary, and he sailed with him IN order to remam of reasonable length, any textbook to St. Helena on January 29, 1816. He was a loyal and must inevitably contain only a selection of the kno~wn deYoted secretary to Sir Hudson to outward view, carry facts-thoRe which the author considers to be of particular ing out all Sir Hudson's wishes and instructions. At the importance, either in their own right or because of the same time, he kept a private diary, now deposited in the light which they throw on the development of theory in Public Record Office. It was prudently written in cipher that particular field. Furthermore, the assembly of these and the many persons mentioned were given pseudonyms. facts into a framework of theory also involves, at tach It also contains fresh items of medical interest, particu point where contemporary workers disagree, the selection larly with regard to the attitude taken up by Sir Hudson of one point of view which is therefore presented as the Lowe to Napoleon's ill health. orthodox "truth". If the textbook is widely use,d, the The difficult task of editing and explaining Correquer's views adopted in it are often generally accepted. diary has been borne by James Kern ble, a recognized While preparing the recent third edition of his textbook authority on Napoleon. In 1959 he published Napoleon Vertebrate Paleontology, Romer decided to attempt to Immortal, in which he described the medical maladies of counter this danger by the preparation of a companion Napoleon from the aspect of modern medicine. With volume of Notes and Comment8. In this, he attempts to research Kemble has solved the cipher, dates and pseudo do two things. First, he reviews most of the important nyms of Correquer's private diary. Apparently, a malign contributions to the field of vertebrate palaeontology influence was exerted by Lady Hudson Lowe ("Sultana" which have appeared in the past twenty years. Second, or "Donna"); her husband was under her thumb, and she where these contributions have led to controversy hn may have aggravated tho feud between him and Napoleon. indicates, after briefly outlining the a-lternative interpreta She was alternately rude or gushing to Correquer. tions, why he chose a particular view. It is not therefore Na.poleon was attended by several doctors during his intended to form H single consecutive narrative, but in lifetime. The French physician, appointed jby Napoleon, stead consists of a series of topics, some of which arc dealt d('clined to go to St Helena when he heard the exile was wit.h quito briefly whereas others hHve required treatment on the island. Barry O'Meara., a naval surgeon, was at greater length. These are arranged in a succession of Napoleon's physician until 1818. His advocacy of ahapters corresponding to those in Vertebrate Paleontology. Napoleon led to his dismissal from the Navy. His book on Many of the publications mentioned have been listed in the same theme was entitled A Voice from St Helena. the' bibliogra.phy of that text and are referred to by tho Dr John Stokoe visited Napoleon on five occasions (1818/ appropriate number, but an additional bibliography of 1819). Dr Francesco Autommarchi, an Italian anatomist, about 500 entries includes the greater detail needed in this was the Emperor's personal physician from 1819 to tho new yolume, and also includes some publications which end a.nd he made the necropsy. Dr Archibald Arnott have appeared since tho last edition of Vertebrate Paleon attended Napoleon in the last 35 days. tology. Its function as a companion volume to that text Napoleon lutd frequent attacks of illness-pulmonary is underlined by the fact that no figures are included in t.ubcrrmlosis and haemopt,ysis (1789 and 1803) con .Notes and Comments. firnwd at necropsy (his son, the Duke of Reichstadt, died In judging this book one must first be quite clear as to of haemoptysis at 21 years); scabies in Egypt cured by what it is designed to do. Well over a hundred topics arc Corvisart, stones in the bladder, and cystitis. He suffered dealt with in its 253 pages of text, and therefore most from Stokes-Adams disease, heart-block with syncope topics receive only two or three pages of discussion at and epileptiform convulsions. His pulse was only 40. most. In reading these brief discussions of research papers, This accounted for delays when action was imperative, as the experienced vertebrate palaeontologist may often at Borodino and Watel'loo, for instance, as Sir William fool that they have been very summarily treated, and that Osler and Sir Arthur Keith have maintained. At St more could hn,ve been said for the opposing Yiews. But Helena the heart condition became settled and his pulse Notes and Comments is not itself a research publication: normal. After several fiery interviews, Napoleon refused Homer has published, and is still publishing, research to see Sir Hudson Lowe for the last five yea.m of his papers on a great variety of subjects, ma.inly concerned exile. with fish, amphibians and reptiles, and it is to those Except for a brief note that Napoleon looked ill, that one must turn for more dota.iled expositions of his Correquer's diary gives no information about his death. arguments. The function of Notes and Comments is to Arnott. did not at first recognize the true nature of indicate to the now student what the important papers Napoleon's illness, regarding it as caused by inflammation are in any given field of Yertebrate palaeontology and, o[ the liver, until the signs and symptoms of cancer of the by a brief discussion, to indicat0 any controversies that © 1969 Nature Publishing Group.