Was Napoleon poisoned?

For decades, scholars and scientists have argued that the exiled dictator, who died in 1821 on the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, was the victim of arsenic, whether by accident or design.

The murder theory held that his British captors poisoned him; the accident theory said that colored wallpaper in his bedroom contained an arsenic-based dye that mold transformed into poisonous fumes.

The evidence behind both theories was that scientists had found arsenic in hairs from Napoleon’s head, which diminished the idea that he had died of stomach cancer. Arsenic is highly toxic, and its poisoning symptoms include violent stomach pains.

“There is nothing improbable about the hypothesis of arsenic poisoning,” wrote Frank McLynn in “Napoleon: A Biography” (Arcade, 2002). “Science gives it rather more than warranted assertibility.”