The fatal illness of Napoleon : a paper read before the Historical Section of the International Congress of Medicine, London (August 8, 1913) / by Arnold Chaplin.

  • Chaplin, Arnold.
Date:
1913
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The fatal illness of Napoleon : a paper read before the Historical Section of the International Congress of Medicine, London (August 8, 1913) / by Arnold Chaplin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    house for weeks at a time. On July 26, 1816, there is a note of a slight pain in the right side, for which O’Meara recommended rubbing. On October 1, of the same year, carious teeth be- gan to give trouble, and on the 23rd one cheek became swollen, and painful, and the gums were spongy. In this condition the Emperor went out for a drive, the first one for six weeks, and on his return at 5 p.m. he was seized with shiver- ings and rigors, which O’Meara found to be due to an attack of tonsillitis, and it was not until November 7 that the surgeon could pronounce his patient well. The months of December 1816 and January and February of 1817 contained no reference to ill health, with the exception of attacks of headache, but on March 24, slight swelling of the legs is recorded, a condition which had been remarked once before in the preceding November. April and May produced nothing of importance, but towards the end of that month the state of the teeth again produced inflammatory trouble in the right cheek, and these symptoms recurred in June and September. In the middle of Sep- tember 1817, O’Meara informed Lowe that, with the exception of slight catarrhal attacks, Napoleon’s health had been tolerable, and that his illness was not of a serious nature. So for the first period there is very little in