A team of investigators from across Canada, including a trio of Western researchers, have raised serious doubt about the popular belief that lead poisoning played a role in the death of members of the famed Franklin Expedition.
A team of investigators from across Canada, including a trio of Western researchers, have raised serious doubt about the popular belief that lead poisoning played a role in the death of members of the famed Franklin Expedition. The study, Franklin expedition lead exposure: New insights from high resolution confocal x-ray fluorescence imaging of skeletal microstructure, was published today in PLOS ONE.
In the summer of 1845, under the command of Sir John Franklin, 128 officers and crew aboard the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror entered the waters of Arctic North America with the goal of completing the discovery of the Northwest Passage. Franklin and his crew spent the first winter at Beechey Island, where three crewmen died and were buried.
The following year the ships became stranded in ice off King William Island where they remained until April 1848. By this time the crew, now reduced to 105 men, made a desperate attempt to reach the mainland. Sadly, not one individual survived.
Previous analyses of bone, hair, and soft tissue samples from the remains of crew members found that tissues contained elevated lead levels, suggesting that lead poisoning may have been a major contribution to their demise.
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