Tag Archives: Poisoning

THE REAL REASON FOR ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S UNPREDICTABLE FITS OF RAGE  

There’s nearly unanimous agreement among historians that Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was America’s greatest leader. Honest Abe, as he was affectionally called, served in the nation’s highest office from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. During that time of civil war, Lincoln’s guidance held the union together, and he worked towards the emancipation of slaves. But despite Lincoln’s reputation of calmness under stress, there was a dark side to him. Abraham Lincoln was known for his unpredictable fits of rage.

Abraham Lincoln was not a well man during most of his adult life. It’s documented that Lincoln suffered from what was then known as hypochondriasis—the 19th-century term for paranoia and melancholia. Today, he’d likely be diagnosed as having manic-depressive disorder or, at least, experiencing clinical depression. Lincoln’s symptoms included gastrointestinal discomfort, headache, fatigue, fever, chills, insomnia, anxiety, hypervigilance, forgetfulness, immense sadness or despair, and uncontrollable mood swings including maniacal laughter as well as those unpredictable fits of rage.

At one congressional debate in the 1850s, Lincoln lost it and grabbed an opponent by the throat, shaking him so violently that the man’s teeth chattered. In the beginning of his presidency, White House staffers feared Lincoln’s rath which seemed to come from nowhere. Remarkably, though, after five months in the Commander-in-Chief’s chair, Abraham Lincoln suddenly changed. For the rest of his days, he was the picture of calm and control.

It’s well known, historically, that President Lincoln was medicated for his ills. His main prescription was for a common-at-the-time pharmaceutical called Pilula Hydrargyri or Blue Mass. Blue Pills, as the drug was also known, were prescribed for a wide range of ailments from diarrhea to childbirth pain. And it was the go-to pill for treating melancholy.

Abraham Lincoln stopped taking Blue Mass, or Blue Pills, after five months in the Oval Office. He said they were “making him cross”. No doubt they were, as Lincoln was a changed man when he got off his meds. Let’s look at who this remarkable person was, his feats as President, and find out just what was inside those little blue pills.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a Kentucky log cabin. His family were dirt-poor, and Lincoln had little formal education. He was kicked in the head by a horse when he was nine and nearly died. He also suffered serious injuries by being clubbed unconscious during a robbery, nearly severing a thumb with an axe, experiencing severe frostbite on both feet, and breaking an arm.

Abe Lincoln was an unusual-looking adult—tall and gaunt. He was 6’ 4” and weighed 150-160 lbs. Lincoln had a notably drooping eye and disproportionate limbs. Some speculate he had a rare genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome which could have accounted for his deformities.

Although Lincoln had little schooling, he was far from uneducated. He was a self-taught man and a true life-long learner. He’d moved to Illinois in 1830 where he self-studied law and passed the state bar exam in 1836, setting up a practice in Springfield.

Politics called for Abraham Lincoln in 1847 when he was elected to one term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was defeated for a second term and went back to practicing law. Lincoln became politically active again in the mid-1850s and gained fame with an outstanding performance in what’s known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

Abraham Lincoln lost his bid for the Vice Presidency in the 1856 general election. Defeat didn’t stop Mr. Lincoln, and he was elevated to the Office of President of the United States of America in 1860. His official inauguration was on March 4, 1861. In two months, the American Civil War would break out.

Lincoln experienced extreme sadness and grief during his life. His beloved mother died when he was twelve. The same year, he lost his affectionate aunt and uncle. His first wife died unexpectedly, and two of the four boys he had with his second wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, died in their childhood.

Lincoln’s law partner, John Todd Stewart, described him as “an unfortunate and miserable man… the most striking picture of dejection I have ever seen.” Lincoln self-assessed in a preserved letter. It read:

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me. I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.

John Todd Stewart is on record that Abraham Lincoln was prescribed Blue Mass for his depression as early as 1841 when Lincoln was thirty-two. It’s not known if this was daily for the next twenty years but Lincoln, himself in his diaries, recorded that he stopped ingesting the pills in August of 1861 at age fifty-two. This was right at the time Lincoln made the momentous decision to sign the Confiscation Act that seized Confederate possessions including slaves and when his most capable soldier, General Nathaniel Lyon, was killed in battle.

In sobriety, Abraham Lincoln executed his duties of the Office of the President in exemplary fashion. He became a figurehead of calm reason—a man of vision and calculation—who inspired others to fight on and win the solidarity of the union as well as being instrumental in freeing America’s enslaved. Tragically, The Great Emancipator was assassinated on April 15, 1865. The Gettysburg Address is one of his legacies.

It’s far more than a coincidence that Abraham Lincoln’s emotional condition improved, or stabilized, when he stopped taking the Blue Mass pills. That’s well recorded and was observed by all those working with Lincoln or folks being familiar with the man. This leads to the logical question of just what was in those little blue pills that were making President Lincoln sick.

The ingredients of Pilula Hydrargyri or Blue Mass pills were no secret. They were well-known back in Lincoln’s day. Here’s the recipe posted in Medical Histories of the Union Generals:

  • 33 Parts Mercury
  • 5 Parts Licorice
  • 25 Parts Althaea
  • 3 Parts Glycerine
  • 34 Parts Rose Honey

33 Parts Mercury? Hold on. Mercury is a heavy metal that’s toxic to human beings when ingested and metabolized by the system. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Mercury exposure at high levels can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune systems in people.”

All the symptoms Abraham Lincoln presented—gastrointestinal discomfort, headache, fatigue, fever, chills, insomnia, anxiety, hypervigilance, forgetfulness, immense sadness or despair, and uncontrollable mood swings including maniacal laughter as well as those unpredictable fits of rage—were consistent with side effects from mercury poisoning.

Here’s more information from the EFA about mercury:

Mercury is a naturally occurring chemical element found in rock in the earth’s crust, including in deposits of coal. On the periodic table, it has the symbol “Hg” and its atomic number is 80. It exists in several forms:

  • Elemental (metallic) mercury
  • Inorganic mercury compounds
  • Methylmercury and other organic compounds

Elemental (Metallic) Mercury

Elemental or metallic mercury is a shiny, silver-white metal, historically referred to as quicksilver, and is liquid at room temperature. It is used in older thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs, and some electrical switches. When dropped, elemental mercury breaks into smaller droplets which can go through small cracks or become strongly attached to certain materials. At room temperature, exposed elemental mercury can evaporate to become an invisible, odorless toxic vapor. If heated, it is a colorless, odorless gas.

Elemental mercury is an element that has not reacted with another substance. When mercury reacts with another substance, it forms a compound, such as inorganic mercury salts or methylmercury.

Inorganic Mercury

In its inorganic form, mercury occurs abundantly in the environment, primarily as the minerals cinnabar and metacinnabar, and as impurities in other minerals. Mercury can readily combine with chlorine, sulfur, and other elements, and subsequently weather to form inorganic salts.  Inorganic mercury salts can be transported in water and occur in soil. Dust containing these salts can enter the air from mining deposits of ores that contain mercury. Emissions of both elemental or inorganic mercury can occur from coal-fired power plants, burning of municipal and medical waste, and from factories that use mercury. Inorganic mercury can also enter water or soil from the weathering of rocks that contain inorganic mercury salts, and from factories or water treatment facilities that release water contaminated with mercury.

Although the use of mercury salts in consumer products, such as medicinal products, have been discontinued, inorganic mercury compounds are still being widely used in skin lightening soaps and creams. Mercuric chloride is used in photography and as a topical antiseptic and disinfectant, wood preservative, and fungicide. In the past, mercurous chloride was widely used in medicinal products, including laxatives, worming medications, and teething powders. It has since been replaced by safer and more effective agents. Mercuric sulfide is used to color paints and is one of the red coloring agents used in tattoo dyes.

Human exposure to inorganic mercury salts can occur both in occupational and environmental settings. Occupations with higher risk of exposure to mercury and its salts include mining, electrical equipment manufacturing, and chemical and metal processing in which mercury is used. In the general population, exposure to mercuric chloride can occur through the dermal route from the use of soaps and creams or topical antiseptics and disinfectants. Another, less well-documented, source of exposure to inorganic mercury salts among the general population is from their use in ethnic religious, magical, and ritualistic practices and in herbal remedies.

Methylmercury

When inorganic mercury salts can become attached to airborne particles. Rain and snow deposit these particles on land. Even after mercury gets deposited on land, it often returns to the atmosphere, as a gas or associated with particles, and then redeposits elsewhere. 

As it cycles between the atmosphere, land, and water, mercury undergoes a series of complex chemical and physical transformations, many of which are not completely understood. Microscopic organisms can combine mercury with carbon, thus converting it from an inorganic to organic form. Methylmercury is the most common organic mercury compound found in the environment and is highly toxic.

So, if mercury is primarily used for industrial purposes and is highly toxic in human consumption, where did the idea come from to make it into medicine and poison someone like Abraham Lincoln? No one seems to know who first thought of swallowing little blue pills made with quicksilver, but the practice has been around a long time. Literature from the early 1800s recommends the generic name Blue Mass as a treatment for dysentery, constipation, syphilis, gonorrhea, melancholia, worms, tuberculosis, toothache, and more.

Here’s a quote: To be fair, it was probably equally effective for all those diseases… which is to say not effective at all for any of them.

And here’s some mercury poisoning trivia: Hat makers often suffered from the same syndrome as Lincoln. Constant exposure to a mercury compound used to treat felt hats gave them violent mood swings, inspiring the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Blue Mass pills have been off the market for decades. (By the way, the blue color came from blue chalk that was used as a buffing agent to help bind the mercury to the other ingredients.) No pills were thought to exist that could be analyzed by a modern forensics laboratory to determine the exact mercury content, or weight in each pill, which could show how over-medicated (read that as over-intoxicated) someone like President Lincoln would’ve been.

That was until a retired physician and medical historian, Norbert Hirschhorn, dug into the Lincoln case. Dr. Hirschhorn and the Royal Society of Chemistry struck gold—actually, quicksilver—in a medical museum. There, in a nicely crafted wooden box, were two vials marked Pilula Hydrargyri. Inside were a bunch of little blue pills.

Dr. Bin Chen, Senior Applications Chemist at PS Analytical in Kent, England, carried out a test on the Blue Mass pills. He found each contained 33.6% mercury in ground amounts that could easily be absorbed into a human body. Every pill contained 750 micrograms of elemental mercury—far above the EPA’s long-term mercury tolerance of 21 micrograms for the human body to safely withstand.

Quoting Dr. Chen: To think the President was meant to take three pills a day, every day, for how many years… that is appalling. He would have been consuming nine thousand times over the safety limit.

If this were the case, and there’s every reason to believe it was true, then the President suffered from heavy metal poisoning. It’s no wonder Abraham Lincoln had unpredictable fits of rage.

GILBERT PAUL JORDAN—THE “BOOZING BARBER” SERIAL KILLER

A5The term “serial killer” makes us think of hi-profile monsters like Ted Bundy, who beat and strangled his victims, or the Zodiac Killer, who shot most with a gun. There’s Clifford Olson who used a hammer. Jack The Ripper who liked his knife. And Willie Pickton who drugged his ladies, cut them apart with an electric Sawzall, then fed their pieces to his pigs.

By nature, serial killers follow a specific Modus Operandi—an M.O. peculiar to their wares. Some strangle, some shoot, some smash, and some slash. But the most unique and unsuspecting method of serial killing I’ve heard of came from Gilbert Paul Jordan, aka the “Boozing Barber”, who got his victims comatose drunk then finished them off by pouring straight vodka down their throats. He intentionally alcohol-poisoned at least nine women—possibly dozens more.

A1

Gilbert Jordan was a monster from the 1980’s operating in the Down Town East Side of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Today, the skid row DTES of Vancouver is still one of the most dangerous, crime and drug-ridden inner cities of the world. In the DTES, the most popular drug of choice is still alcohol—ethanol as it’s known in the coroner and toxicologist world.

A6Jordan was born in 1931 and started a crime career in his twenties by kidnapping and raping a five-year-old aboriginal girl. He beat the charges and went on to commit more sexual assaults including abducting a woman from a mental institute and raping her, too. Jordan bounced in and out of jail. He continued to prey on the helpless and downtrodden, especially alcoholic women from the First Nations culture. Gilbert Jordan, himself, became a raging alcoholic and consumed over fifty ounces of vodka per day.

Jordan learned barbering skills while in prison. Between jail sentences, he set up a barber shop on East Hastings Street in the heart of Vancouver’s DTES, being a regular fixture in the seedy bar scene. He blended easily and was not at all intimidating—short, stocky, balding, with thick glasses.

Jordan was a well-known mark for buying vulnerable aboriginal women drinks and he’d take them from the bars to his barber shop or a room which he kept in a derelict hotel. Here they’d party till they passed out. It’s estimated that hundreds of women binge drank with Jordan during his spree from 1980 to 1987.

Overdose deaths in the DTES were common.

A7The majority were intravenous drug users, many having a lethal toxin level amplified with mixed use of ethanol. It’s still that way today. But overdose deaths from ethanol consumption alone are rare. Usually, heavy drinkers reach a blood-ethanol limit where they pass out—long before ethanol effects shut down their central nervous system. The few deaths from ethanol alone are almost always caused by an unconscious victim aspirating on vomit—not from reaching a lethal blood-ethanol-content. A BEC of 0.35% (35mg of ethanol per 100 milliliters of blood) is considered the start of the lethal range. Note that 0.08% is the standard for drunk driving.

During Jordan’s run, there were increasingly suspicious amounts of aboriginal women deaths from shockingly high BEC. They included:

  1. Ivy Rose — 0.51
  2. Mary Johnson — 0.44
  3. Barbara Paul — 0.47
  4. Mary Johns — 0.76
  5. Patricia Thomas — 0.51
  6. Patricia Andrew — 0.79
  7. Vera Harry — 0.49
  8. Vanessa Buckner — 0.50
  9. Edna Slade — 0.55

A8When Edna Slade was found dead in Gilbert Jordan’s hotel room, and it became apparent Jordan was the common denominator in many similar deaths, Vancouver Police put Jordan under surveillance. From October 12th to November 26th, 1987, VPD observed Jordan “search out native Indian women in the skid row area of Vancouver and take them back to his hotel room for binge-drinking”.

VPD officers listened from outside Jordan’s door and recorded him saying phrases like “Have a drink. Down the hatch, baby. Twenty bucks if you drink it right down. See if you’re a real woman. Finish that drink. Down the hatch, hurry, right down. You need another drink. I’ll give you fifty bucks if you can take it right down. I’ll give you ten, twenty, fifty dollars. Whatever you want. Come on, I want to see you get it all down. Get it right down.

On four occasions during the surveillance, police intervened and remove the comatose victims to the hospital.

A9Gilbert Jordan was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Vanessa Buckner. The prosecution used similar fact evidence from the other eight identified deaths. He was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. This was reduced to nine years on appeal and he served only six. When Jordan was paroled in 1994, he went right back to the business of stalking alcoholic aboriginal women. He was being watched by VPD and immediately sent back to prison for parole violation and an additional sexual assault. He served out his sentenced but was released in 2000, again returning to a life of chronic alcoholism and serial predation.

Gilbert Jordan, the Boozing Barber, died of the disease called alcoholism in 2006.

*   *   *

Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, has been used by humans for thousands of years for its relaxation effect of euphoria and lowering social inhibitions. Drinking ethanol is widely accepted around the western world and is an enormous economic force.

A12Ethanol abuse is a contributing factor in untold tragedies.

Despite ethanol’s popularity as a social interactor, the medical pathophysiology considers any amount of BEC to be clinically poisonous. Ethanol is metabolized by the liver at a rate of about 50 ml (1.7 fluid ounce) per 90 minutes. That’s like two beers or one 9-ounce glass of wine every hour and a half. Drink more than you can absorb and you’ll get drunk. Wake up still drunk and you’re hung-over.

A13The acute effects of an ethanol overdose vary according to many factors. The body mass and tolerance to the drug are primary as is the rate of consumption. Ultimately, acute ethanol poisoning depresses the body’s central nervous system, causing the respiratory system to shut down and the victim asphyxiates.

These are the average symptomatic presentations of ethanol poisoning in relation to BEC:

  • 02 – 0.07% — Intoxication and euphoria
  • 08 – 0.19% — Ataxia (loss of body control ), poor judgment, labile mood
  • 20 – 0.29% — Advanced ataxia, extremely poor judgment, nausea
  • 30 – 0.35% — Stage 1 anesthesia, memory collapse
  • 35 – 0.39% — Comatose
  • 40 +             — Respiratory failure, sudden death

A14In my time as a police officerthen as a coronerI attended lots of deaths where ethanol was a contributing factor. Very few were acute ethanol poisoning deaths, though. Many were mixed drug overdoses, especially mixing booze with prescription pills. Then there were suffocating on puke cases, suicides while pissed, fatal motor vehicle crashes driven by drunks, and violent homicides done during ethanol-fueled anger and inebriation.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not slamming the social use of ethanol. I’ve been around the booze scene my whole life and still enjoy decent wine and good scotch, although I’ve never had a taste for beer.

A15I grew up in a socio-economic environment where rampant alcoholism was common. It was accepted. Grant RobertsonI worked with Grant in my teensGrant was proud of his breathalyzer certificate proving he was caught behind the wheel at a 0.44% BEC. True story. I saw the paper. Grant was a die-hard—a chronic alcoholic with forty years of practice. I don’t think Grant ever went below two-five.

As a young cop, I brought an old guy in for a blow. I couldn’t tell if he was drunk but he’d caused a minor car accident and slightly smelled of liquor. Legally, I had to demand a breathalyzer test. He pushed the needle to a 0.36% and I’ll never forget the breathalyzer operator’s remark “You’re no stranger to alcohol, are you?

People have different tolerances to ethanol. And different physiological responses.

A16I’ve worked with cops who were drunk on duty, seen judges half-cut on the bench, had my pilot pass out before time to depart, and I’ve woken in places unknown. I’ve had countless laughs, spent way too much money on time pissed away, and have stories from nights in the bars.

But I still can’t get clipped in my buddy Dave’s chair without thinking of Gilbert Paul Jordan, the “Boozing Barber” Serial Killer of the Down Town East Side of Vancouver.

FORENSIC FACTS FROM THE FATAL FRANKLIN EXPEDITION

A6The 1845 expedition led by Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage was one of the biggest disasters in exploration history. Despite being outfitted with the best provisions and equipment of the time, the entire complement of 129 officers and men aboard the British Royal Navy ships HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror perished in the wilds of the frozen north. It was the nineteenth century’s equivalent to having lost the International Space Station.

The cause of what truly led to the demise of the Franklin Expedition has fascinated historians and scientists for years, creating many theories based on scarce evidence. In 2014, the well-preserved wreck of the Erebus was found on the sea floor near King William Island in Canada’s Arctic. It’s discovery renewed interest in Franklin’s fate and a look through modern forensics tells a tale of how the ships’ cutting-edge technology probably snuck up to kill the crew.

First, a look at some history.

A8The Franklin Expedition was commissioned by the British Admiralty to do more than just find the elusive Northwest Passage. It was also a scientific venture to record the Arctic’s flora and fauna, map the terrain, observe magnetism and meteorology, inspect geology, and establish Commonwealth sovereignty in the north.

The voyagers were equipped with the finest navigation instruments and stocked with ample provisions to survive far longer than the planned three-year venture. The ships had been specifically refitted to withstand crushing ice pressures and upgraded with inboard steam engines to assist in turning through the maze of ice, as well as for the first time having an onboard desalination plant for turning seawater into fresh.

They debarked England on May 19, 1845 and made their first stop in Greenland to top off supplies. Already five crew members were ill and were discharged back home. The expedition departed and was last seen by other Europeans from two whaling ships in August in the vicinity of Lancaster Sound at the entrance to the Passage.

A9History shows the Franklin Expedition camped the winter of 1845-1846 on Beechey Island where later parties discovered artifacts and the graves of three sailors. When the Expedition failed to return to England in 1849—a year after planned—search parties were formed and a slight trail of clues was discovered to shed light on their fate.

The only document recovered was a note in a rock cairn on King William Island stating the ships had been ice-locked for nineteen months and were abandoned on April 22, 1848, three days before the note was written. It also advised that Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847 and that the remaining 105 officers and men were attempting to venture by land for a Canadian mainland settlement at Back’s Fish River. None made it.

Progressive searches over ten years found pieces of human skeletons and artifacts that were proven to have come from the Franklin party, however no mass death site was located and their final demise was attributed to starvation and exposure.

The Franklin story and explanation for what caused a perfectly outfitted expedition of experienced explorers who prepared for these exact conditions and time interval never strayed from public interest.

A10In 1981, a team of scientists led by Dr. Owen Beattie, a professor of anthropology, began a forensic examination of the Beechey Island wintering site, including an exhumation of the crew members’ graves in hopes of determining their cause of death. This is documented in the great book Frozen In Time – The Fate Of The Franklin Expedition.

What Dr. Beattie’s team found was truly remarkable—not just in eventual toxicology evidence—but in the incredibly well-preserved condition the bodies were in, given they’d spent over 135 years in the permafrost.

A4The team autopsied John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine, concluding that pneumonia was possibly their primary cause of death, with tuberculosis maybe being a contributor. Otherwise, they appeared perfectly healthy. Malnutrition, chronic disease, foul play, or any form of accidental death was ruled out.

Being diligent, the team later ordered toxicology screening including a test for trace elements in the tissues, blood, bone, and hair. The results astounded them. All three sailors showed a presence of lead in amounts far, far exceeding normal levels. Braine, the last to die, showed 220 parts per million (ppm) in his hair, which is over one hundred times the acceptable level.

This led to a theory that the crew may have perished as a progressive result of lead poisoning with known side effects being a loss of cognitive awareness and the eventual inability for organs to function.

A11The team continued their search of the suspected southward trail of the doomed expedition and found considerable pieces of human skulls and bones which were anthropologically linked to European Caucasians, giving proof they must have belonged to the Franklin group. Every single bone contained an exceptionally high lead content. In total, the remains of thirty-two different individuals were identified. What became of the other seventy-five percent of the Franklin crew who abandoned the ships is a mystery.

Pursuing the lead poisoning theory, suspicion fell on the lead solder used in the tin-canned provisions of meat and vegetables which the ships stored. Inventory records show the Erebus and the Terror held over 8,000 tins of preserves each with a total weight of 33,289 pounds.

A12With the British being ones to keep meticulous records, the tin-can contract was documented to have gone to a London food processor named Stephan Goldner. The low-bid contract was awarded late in the Expedition’s outfitting process and Goldner’s company was under a huge rush to complete on time. To speed the delivery and to profit more, Goldner began using larger containers and slipped on the quality control.

Examination of the numerous discarded cans in the Beechey Island site’s garbage pile showed that the soldering on most cans was very sloppy with big gobs of solder spots on the interiors. It appeared Goldner’s greed and rush may have doomed the Franklin expedition.

A13However—digging deeper into the Goldner tin-can theory, it was recorded that Goldner had been providing the Royal Navy with lead-soldered canned goods for years before, and for years after, the Franklin fate and there were absolutely no reports of anyone suffering from lead poisoning anywhere within the rest of the British fleet.

Additionally, reports from the Inuit people who came in contact with the Franklin crew near their end  indicated the members were in starvation—half-mad and resorting to cannibalism. This was forensically corroborated by striation marks on many bones which were consistent with disarticulation and the mechanical stripping of flesh.

Curiously, it appeared that the crew was starving—desperately short of food in less than three years after embarking with stores that were capable of lasting five years, if properly rationed. Combined with the extremely high lead content in the sailors, it was evident something else was amiss.

A2Now, between 1818 and 1845 the British Admiralty instigated ten ship-borne Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, three of which Sir John Franklin was part of. These folks were no strangers to cold, harsh, and lengthy trips. After Franklin’s disappearance, thirty-six separate search expeditions were conducted into the Northwest passage. While a few men perished and a few ships were destroyed, none of these expeditions suffered such a total and devastating loss as did Franklin.

Clearly it was evident there was some unique and fatal flaw in the Franklin Expedition and it was thought it must have something to do with the lead.

William Battersby is a British Naval Architect who published a brilliant report titled Identification of the Probable Source of the Lead Poisoning Observed in Members of the Franklin Expedition.

A15Battersby identified what was different on board the Erebus and the Terror than on all other Royal Naval vessels, before or since. Remember, these two ships were refitted for this lengthy voyage into a harsh, frozen land and they carried with them new technology specifically designed for these two ships—a new infrastructure for desalination—for turning salty seawater into drinkable freshwater.

This was a complicated system as it was not just distilled, potable freshwater for consumption that the system was providing. It also produced freshwater for the engines’ steam boilers as well as making hot water for the ships’ heating systems.

A3And—you guessed it—the system’s entire plumbing was made of lead pipes soldered together with lead.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “Humans have been using lead pipes for plumbing since the days of the Romans and nobody’s been reported to have died from them.”

Hang on. There was something really unique going on aboard the Erebus and the Terror that affects how lead transfers from water into blood.

Here’s a quote from Battersby’s report:

The amount of lead absorbed by water from lead pipes or solders greatly increases where:

  • Water is soft, such as when freshly distilled.
  • An installation is new and has not built up a layer of scale. Scale insulates water in older installations from direct contact with lead.
  • Water is warm or hot. This dramatically increases the amount of lead which water can carry.

All these conditions applied to the installations in the HMS Erebus and Terror.

A17“Interesting theory, Garry”, you say. “I buy it was the pipes, not the cans, where the high concentration of lead came from, but how do you explain the starvation when there was ample canned food to go around?”

Great question and I think Scott Cookman might have answered it in his book Ice Blink – The Tragic Fate Of Sir John Franklin’s Lost Polar Expedition.

Cookman’s theory is that in Stephan Goldner’s greedy rush to drop quality control standards, he failed to cook the preserves at a high enough heat for a long enough time, thereby introducing botulism in a portion of the cans.

It falls into the facts that early in the voyage, five sick crew members were discharged and then three seemingly healthy, well-nourished sailors—Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine—suddenly up and died.

The theory continues that once the magnitude of the tainted canned-food scandal became apparent, the Franklin Expedition was solidly locked in ice and forced to exhaust the remaining stores of flour and beans—all which would be cooked in heavy-lead water.

Once the edible food stores ran out, the crew made a desperate, lead-poisoned and half-mad trek across land and probably perished, one-by-one, with the last of them insanely resorting to cannibalism.

What a horrific fate for the Franklin Expedition.