Arnott was reluctant to discuss the St. Helena episode in his later years. He presumably wanted his book of 1822 to be his last word on the subject. When this publication appeared, Lowe took umbrage and wrote to the Colonel of the 20th Regiment complaining of the doctor’s conduct. Arnold Chaplin, in his account of Napoleon’s illness, is puzzled by the Governor’s objection but Lowe’s irritation is understandable. He had taken considerable trouble to manipulate Arnott and he could not have expected the doctor to belatedly produce an honest account of Napoleon’s last weeks. Now it would be possible for the public to read both Arnott’s contemporary medical reports and his book and to understand that that the surgeon’s actions on St. Helena were the result of the climate of fear created by the Governor.16
Notes
1. Gorrequer, Major G, St. Helena during Napoleon’s Exile, pp. 221, 63, 131–3, 172; Chaplin, A, A St. Helena Who’s Who, p. 29; Young, N, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, p. 272.
2. Wilson, JB, Dr Archibald Arnott; Chaplin, A St. Helena Who’s Who, pp. 33, 51–2; Chaplin, A, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 100–102; Richardson, F, Napoleon’s Death: An Inquest, pp. 152–3.
3. Markham, JD, Napoleon and Dr Verling on St. Helena, pp. 83–4, 140–2; Forsyth, W, History of the Captivity of Napoleon, Vol. II, p. 72; Young, Vol. II, p. 159; Bertrand, Général, Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, pp. 383–5; Bertrand, General, Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 131.
4. Forsyth, Vol. II, pp. 130, 148–50; Lutyens, E, Letters of Captain Engelbert Lutyens, pp. 62, 67, 101–4; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 132–5; Marchand, Mémoires de Marchand, Vol. II, pp. 290–2; St. Denis, LE, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, p. 261; Wilson; Markham, p. 98; Lowe Papers 20214 f. 159; The National Archives J 76/4/1 ff. 21–2; Gorrequer, p. 219.
5. Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 6–47; Lemaire, J-F, Autour de ‘L’Empoisonnement’ de Napoléon, pp. 22–31; Lugli, A, Napoleon Bonaparte’s Gastric Cancer.
6. Lugli; Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 48–75.
7. Lin, X, Elemental Contents in Napoleon’s Hair; Lugli; Forshufvud, S, Who Killed Napoleon?, p. 182; Maury, R, L’Énigme Napoléon resolue, p. 135; Lugli, A, Napoleon’s Autopsy: New Perspectives.
8. Marchand, Vol. II, p. 292; Young, Vol. II, p. 212; Ganière, P, Napoléon à Sainte Hélène: La Mort de L’Empereur L’Apothéose, pp. 194–5; Frémeaux, P, The Drama of St. Helena, p. 277; Antommarchi, F, Les Derniers Moments de Napoléon, Vol. II, pp. 49–50.
9. Wilson; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 254, 152–80, 215, 199–206; Masson, F, Autour de Sainte-Hélène, Vol. III, p. 246; Kemble, Napoleon Immortal, pp. 266–9; Frémeaux, p. 283.
10. Young, Vol. II, pp. 215–6; Marchand, Vol. II, p. 299; Lutyens, p. 135; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 157–8; Frémeaux, p. 287; Forsyth, Vol. II, p. 153; Gorrequer, p. 222; Lowe Papers 20157 f. 18.
11. Young, Vol. II, p. 224; Antommarchi, Vol. II, pp. 107–8; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 254–5.
12. Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 35–6; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 147, 170; Young, Vol. II, pp. 212–21; Lowe Papers 20133 f. 18, 20207 f. 341, 20157, ff. 2–28; Forsyth, Vol. II, pp. 151, 640; Lutyens, p. 119; Glover, G, Wellington’s Lieutenant Napoleon’s Gaoler, p. 290.
13. Lowe Papers 20157 ff. 17, 29–34, 20133 f. 107; Antommarchi, Vol. II, p. 76; Young, Vol. II, pp. 219–23; Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 45–6; Forsyth, Vol. II, p. 155; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 252–3.
14. Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 35–6; Arnott, A, An account of the Last Illness and decease and PM appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. iii–iv, 3–23; Richardson, pp. 155–7.
15. Richardson, p. 155; Kemble, pp. 264–5; Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 161; Gorrequer, pp. 220–1, 243–4; Korngold, R, The Last Years of Napoleon, p. 390; Martineau, G, Napoleon’s St. Helena, pp. 213–4; Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 37–8.
16. Marchand, Vol. II, pp. 336–54; Young, Vol. II, pp. 225; St. Denis, p. 281; Richardson, pp. 176–7; Wilson; Chaplin, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 100–102; Chaplin, A St. Helena Who’s Who, pp. 51–2.
9
DEATH MASK
With Napoleon dead, it may be thought that there was little chance of more medical men becoming ensnared in the web of conspiracy that surrounded him. This was not the case. Two more British doctors were to be trapped and the first of these was Thomas Shortt who arrived on St. Helena in December 1820. Shortt was the most outstanding of all the Army and Navy doctors on the island. He was born in 1788 near Dumfries and received his medical education in Edinburgh. In 1806, at the age of eighteen, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to a battalion of the Foot Guards. He served in the Mediterranean and soon transferred to the Royal Artillery. In Egypt in 1807, his talents were recognised and he was placed in charge of a hospital for the sick of the artillery, the engineers and the Staff Corps. He also had responsibility for supervision of an eye hospital in Alexandria. In the following years he served with distinction in Sicily with the Chasseurs Britanniques and was appointed Surgeon to the 29th Light Dragoons in 1813. He declined the opportunity of a Staff Surgeon post but at the end of the war he was offered the post of Physician to the Forces which he accepted.
All this represented a brilliant and rapid military career. Shortt had been promoted to the prestigious post of Physician at only twenty seven years of age, an unusual achievement even in a time of conflict. With hostilities over, he was now on half-pay and he returned to his old medical school to obtain his doctorate. After starting a glittering career in private practice in Edinburgh, including the honorary post of ‘Physician Extraordinary to the King of Scotland’, Shortt was appointed as Baxter’s successor as Principal Medical Officer to St. Helena in 1820. This was a well judged selection in view of his proven medical and administrative expertise, and his fluency in Italian and French. Understandably, the talented physician was not enthused by this turn of events – he was very well established in Edinburgh and must have had an enviable lifestyle – but he complied with the order and he arrived in Jamestown five days before Christmas, accompanied by his wife Henrietta.1
The decision to appoint Shortt was taken by James McGrigor, the veteran chief of the Army medical service, who had proved so valuable to Wellington’s cause in the Peninsular War. McGrigor was mindful of Baxter’s problems and he had sent a man who, he hoped, would be able to act with more autonomy. Lowe, irritated that he had not been consulted prior to the appointment, was immediately sensitised to the presence of Shortt. When the new senior medical officer said things which were helpful to the Governor – he roundly condemned O’Meara and confirmed the healthiness of the local garrison – Lowe perversely complained to Bathurst in a letter of February 1821 that the doctor was trying too hard to please. He suspected that Shortt might be sending different reports to McGrigor. Despite his reservations as to his loyalties, the Governor felt obliged to formally offer the services of his most highly qualified doctor to the French. No reply was received.2
Shortt’s integration into the St. Helena community was not helped by Lady Lowe, who took a dislike to him and his wife. His medical reputation had preceded him; Lady Lowe commented to Bertrand that it was a pity that Napoleon was not seeing the new doctor. ‘He was much the most capable man to have reached the island since she herself had arrived on it, not excepting Mr Baxter.’ Despite this respect for his professional abilities, a rift developed between the Lowe and Shortt families. It is possible that the doctor and his wife, fresh from their life in Edinburgh, found the society on St. Helena claustrophobic and were not seen to be adequately respectful. Only a few days after the Shortts’ arrival, Gorrequer records Lady Lowe’s anger that they had decided to visit Admiral Lambert for tea rather than her. The Military Secretary notes that there was a perfectly good reason for this and that no offence
was intended. He adds phlegmatically, ‘The more you tried to be civil and attentive the worse it was, and that was the return that you got for your civility.’
Lady Lowe shared her husband’s paranoid tendencies; she was convinced that there was ‘a party against her’ on the island. In June 1821 she claimed at dinner that the Shortts had behaved with incivility and rudeness. Thomas Shortt was under no illusion as to the Lowes’ sentiments. He told Gorrequer that he knew that the Governor’s wife regarded him as an enemy. Henrietta Shortt, who also left a diary of her time on St. Helena, believed that the only real complaints that Lady Lowe had against her were her ‘Scotch accent and her long waist’. She hints that Her Ladyship was not altogether popular and admits to having a ‘terrible fracas’ with her.3
In such a closed community, social infighting of this sort was inevitable and it need not in itself have damaged the working relationship between Shortt and Lowe. But there was more. Although Shortt never met Napoleon, we have seen that on one occasion, on 3rd May, he did have the opportunity to visit Longwood and to discuss the Emperor’s illness with Arnott and Mitchell. The two doctors who had been excluded from the patient were reluctant to commit themselves to a definite diagnosis. However, Shortt, on the basis of the second-hand information which he had received, did favour liver disease; this was the reason he strongly supported the administration of a large dose of calomel, a medication that can only have exacerbated the symptoms of stomach cancer. The doctor incautiously made his opinion public and it is inconceivable that the Governor was unaware of his views. Lowe had not forgiven O’Meara and Stokoe for making the politically inconvenient diagnosis of liver disease and he had no reason to change his attitude now.4
Napoleon had informed his associates that he wished to have an autopsy performed. He understood that the findings would have political as well as medical connotations – particularly if liver disease was found to be the cause of death – and he instructed Bertrand that he preferred that Antommarchi should perform it either alone or with Arnott. He accepted that Shortt, as the senior British doctor, would probably also be present and he told the Grand Marshal that every precaution was to be taken to see that ‘no nonsense’ was inserted in the official report. The Emperor may have lost his battle with disease but he was determined not to be defeated by Lowe.
The post-mortem examination was arranged for 2pm on 6th May, the day following death. Marchand and Saint-Denis describe a table in the billiard room being prepared with a sheet. The room was only fifteen by eighteen feet and was poorly lit by two side windows. Into this cramped dark space were packed seventeen people; not at all what Napoleon had envisaged. Antommarchi, wearing an apron and holding a scalpel, was to perform the autopsy. Also in attendance were the following: Thomas Reade, Major Charles Harrison, Captain William Crokat (three British officers); Thomas Shortt, Archibald Arnott, Francis Burton, Matthew Livingstone, Charles Mitchell, Walter Henry, George Rutledge (seven British doctors); Bertrand, Montholon, Marchand, Saint-Denis, Vignali and Pierron (six French). Shortt, as the senior medical man, was to oversee the procedure and to draw up the official report. He ordered Walter Henry to take notes. All present were aware that the findings and conclusions would be sent around the world and that this was more than a purely medical matter. The French remained convinced that the post-mortem would reveal that death was caused by hepatitis induced by the climate of St. Helena. Lowe’s followers were equally determined that this should not be the case. Archibald Arnott, who had for so long touted a diagnosis of hypochondriasis, must have been particularly apprehensive. All were ignorant of the real cause of death.
The post-mortem took two hours; the essential findings have already been described. All present were soon convinced that a cancer of the stomach was the fatal disease. Even the French were accepting of this. Bertrand admitted that the stomach was the ‘seat of all the trouble’ with the tumour clearly visible. Montholon wrote much the same to his wife in Europe. Rutledge describes the surprise of the French and their pressing enquiries.
Madame Bertrand went so far as to satisfy herself as to the precise part in which the disease existed that she actually introduced the point of her little finger through the cancerated hole, and said that cancer was what the Emperor had always said to be the matter with him, and of which he anticipated his death.
The Grand Marshal’s wife was not present during the autopsy and she was presumably allowed to view the dissection afterwards. There was actually relief among Napoleon’s followers that his death was due to an inexorable process which could not be attributed to the conditions of his captivity. The post-mortem findings exonerated all his Longwood companions from any possible blame.
There were five different post-mortem reports. Three of these might be termed ‘contemporary’ and two were conceived at a later date. Thomas Shortt wrote the official report and then amended it to produce a second definitive version – we will return to the reason for this. Antommarchi refused to sign this British document. When it was translated to him, he said that he agreed with it but it is alleged, by Francis Burton, that Bertrand forbade him to add his name because the deceased was not referred to as the ‘Emperor Napoleon’. The Grand Marshal makes no mention of this in his memoirs and Antommarchi later claimed that he did not sign because it was not his report. The Corsican penned his own account of the dissection on 8th May and then elaborated on this in a more detailed version, which he appended to his memoir of 1825. The final report was created in 1823 by Walter Henry. He did this following a request from Lowe and he used his original notes to compile it. This entered print in 1839 in Henry’s Trifles from my Portfolio.5
Once it became obvious that the stomach was the site of the fatal disease, the state of the liver was of secondary medical importance. Nevertheless, all present realised the political significance of any hepatic abnormality; even a secondary disorder of the organ might provide ammunition for those who were opposed to the British Government’s treatment of the prisoner. Rutledge helped Antommarchi remove the abdominal organs from the corpse. As the liver was inspected there was an expectant hush. Would O’Meara, Stokoe and Antommarchi be vindicated in their diagnosis of hepatitis? Thomas Reade’s report to Lowe was written only a few hours later. The Governor was too squeamish to attend in person. After giving Lowe details of the appearance of the stomach, Reade describes what happened next.
The liver was afterwards examined. The moment the operator [Antommarchi] took it out Dr Shortt instantly observed ‘it was enlarged’. All the other medical gentlemen differed with him in this opinion, particularly Dr Burton, who combated Dr Shortt’s opinion very earnestly. Dr Henry was equally divided with Dr Burton. Dr Arnott said there was nothing extraordinary in the appearance of the liver, it might be a large one, but certainly not larger than the liver of any man of the same age as General Bonaparte. Dr Mitchell said he saw nothing extraordinary, and Mr Rutledge said it certainly was not enlarged. Notwithstanding all these observations, Dr Shortt still persisted in saying ‘it was enlarged’. This struck me so forcibly that I stepped forward and observed to the medical officers generally, that it appeared to me very important that they should all be prepared to give a decided and prompt opinion as to the real state of the liver, and I recommended a very careful re-examination of it. Dr Shortt made no more observations, but all the other gentlemen reiterated their first opinion to me. At this moment, the liver was in the hand of the operator, and upon my appearing desirous to see it closer, he immediately took his knife and cut it open from one end to the other, observing to me, ‘It is good, perfectly sound, and nothing extraordinary in it.’ He observed at the same time that he thought it was a large liver. This opinion, however, did not appear to have been made in the manner as Dr Shortt had expressed, viz. ‘that the liver was enlarged’. There is a large difference between a ‘large liver’ and ‘a liver being enlarged’. I made this observation to Dr Burton and Dr Arnott who coincided.
Reade’s distinction contains some truth but he h
ad misinterpreted Antommarchi’s opinion. In his own report, written only forty eight hours later, the Corsican physician described the liver as being ‘congested and larger than normal’. The majority medical opinion at the post-mortem was against liver enlargement but the most experienced anatomist and the most accomplished doctor in the room, Antommarchi and Shortt, both expressed the view that the organ was larger than normal. In his official report, Shortt described the cause of death – ‘The internal surface of the stomach to nearly its whole extent was a mass of cancerous disease’ – and added the following;
The convex surface of the left lobe of the liver adhered to the diaphragm, and the liver was perhaps a little larger than natural. With the exception of the adhesions occasioned by the disease in the stomach no unhealthy appearance presented itself in the liver.
He presumably thought this to be a reasonable compromise. The insertion of the word ‘perhaps’ acknowledged that his own opinion was not universally accepted. This report was signed by Shortt, Arnott, Mitchell and Burton. The two most junior doctors, the Assistant Surgeons Rutledge and Henry, were excluded as the Governor had ordered that only those of the rank of Surgeon or above should be signatories. Livingstone was not included as he was not present during the final stages of the autopsy. Shortt did not approve of the presence of an employee of the East India Company and he had found an excuse to remove him before the end.6
Lowe remained vigilant and he immediately raised two objections to the post-mortem report. He complained that the signature of Livingstone had been omitted and he brought attention to the statement regarding the liver, as he understood this not to be the opinion of all the doctors present. He was determined that there should not be even a hint of liver disease. We have no record of the subsequent discussions which must have taken place between the Principal Medical Officer and the Governor. A second post-mortem report was produced; this made no reference to enlargement of the liver and contained the signature of Livingstone. Shortt kept a copy of the redundant first report with his papers and it can still be inspected in the British Library. The sentence, ‘The liver was perhaps a little larger than natural’ is crudely crossed out and there is a footnote in Shortt’s handwriting, ‘The words obliterated were suppressed by the order of Sir Hudson Lowe, Thomas Shortt, PMO.’ There is no date to this addition.
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