For over 150 years people have been searching for
the two lost ships, (the Erebus and Terror). Owen Beattie, a University of
Alberta anthropologist let the first of 17 expeditions from 1981 to 2011. Going
back to Beechy Island and King William Island, Beattie and his crew studied the
graves, bodies and other physical evidence left by Franklin’s crew.
In 1984, Beattie and his group exhumed three
well-preserved bodies of crew members on Beechy Island in the permafrost. These
men’s bodies were well preserved, and undisturbed for many long decades. There they
performed autopsies on the three crew men. Trace samples from the body and hair
of John Shaw Torrington indicated that the crewmen were probably suffering from
severe mental and physical problems caused by lead poisoning. The lead
poisoning most likely came from the tin cans in which their food was held in.
the seams of the cans were poorly soldered with lead, which came in direct
contact with their food.
Frozen mummy of John Shaw Torrington: This picture, along with the information collective sparked interest in the Franklin expedition again. |
Just to give you an idea of what lead poisoning can
do; lead poisoning is known to cause insanity including delirium, cognitive deficits,
tremors, hallucinations and convulsions. This coupled with the brutal cold,
scurvy, and extreme isolation of being trapped at sea makes it a high probability
that these men went mad. This also
contributes to the evidence of cannibalism in the form of gnaws and cuts on the
human bones.
This image was burned in my head at age 3 in 1984 from the National Geographic that I had opened as a child. I am now 36 and enjoyed this little article. Gave me conclusion to who he was and how he perished.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a woman with blond curly hair...
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a woman with blond curly hair...
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed learning some new things about this expedition.
ReplyDelete