Napoleon: A Biography

British surgeons, produced an official post-mortem report stating that
Napoleon had a 'cancerous ulcer'. Antommarchi indignantly refused to
sign the report. Napoleon was then buried with full military honours in
Geranium Valley in a nameless tomb. The anonymity arose because even
after the Emperor's death Hudson Lowe could not stop his petty
bickering. A dispute between him and Montholon about the lapidary
inscription led to the 'compromise' whereby nothing was inscribed at all.
The notion that Napoleon died of cancer is still widely accepted by
those who are unaware of the perfunctory nature of the post-mortem, the
dissenting opinions of those who conducted the autopsy, the implausibil­
ity of the verdict in view of the anamnesis, and the sheer convenience of
the judgement on cause of death from the point of view of Lowe and the
British government. Working back from the general to the particular, the
most salient fact is that all five British surgeons who signed the report -
doctors Shortt, Arnott, Mitchell, Livingstone and Burton - were under
severe political restraints. They knew well enough what had happened to
O'Meara and Stokoe and what would probably happen to them if they
recorded any verdict that implied that the death had been caused by
British negligence or callousness or by the unhealthy climate of St
Helena. Cancer was the one diagnosis that would be totally satisfactory to
Lowe and his superiors, and it had a superficial plausibility, because
Napoleon's father had died that way. The one diagnosis not allowed was
hepatitis, as this would immediately be connected with the endemic
amoebic dysentery on the island. Not surprisingly, therefore, death by
cancer was the verdict returned.
It is worth taking a closer look at the autopsy findings as contained in
the minority report written by Antommarchi. Let us remember also that
Antommarchi had infinitely greater experience in corpse dissection and
autopsy than any of the others present. Antommarchi found that
Napoleon's liver was abnormally large - indicating either hepatitis or
poisoning - and that there were adhesions of the liver and the stomach.
Shortt agreed with Antommarchi's findings and strongly dissented from
his colleagues' opinion that there was no abnormality in the liver. In his
private papers he made a note that the detail of the enlarged liver and the
adhesions was omitted from the majority report on the express orders of
Hudson Lowe. The best way to deal with Antommarchi's damaging
findings, therefore, was to attack the man rather than his skills - which is
what so many historians have done since.
What of the credentials of the other British doctors? It seems that the
dominant spirit at the autopsy was that of an Assistant Surgeon, Walter
Henry, who witnessed the operation and wrote up the report for the