FrankExp.+C.O.D.+Theories

Cause & Manner of Death - Theories

__ Food & Lead Poisoning __ The HMS Terror and HMS Erebus were stocked with an abundance of food. The supplies were expected to last for almost 5 years and consisted of: 61 987kg of flour, 16 749L of liquor, 909L of wine for the sick, 4 287kg of chocolate, 1 069kg of tea, 8 000 tins of soup, meat and vegetables, 3 215kg of tobacco, 1 673kg of soap, 1 225kg of candles, 4 200kg of lemon juice to prevent scurvy and dozens of wolf skin blankets.

However, the edibility of the tins food was stored in was dubious. Franklin and his crew had employed Stephan Goldner under contract to provide them with food for the journey. Goldner was responsible for ensuring the tins were cooked and preserved properly, knowing that some would be kept for a few years before consumption. The average 2-4lb (0.9 - 1.8Kg) tin required cooking of 7-11 hours at a temperature of 250°F (121°C). However, Goldner did not finish the tins in time and was hassled by Franklin to produce the supplies quickly. Unfortunately, Goldner proceeded to cook the food in the tins at a higher temperature but shorter time of a mere 45-75 minutes. These inadequately prepared tins would have had an abundance of the bacterion called //Clostridium botulism//, which is able to kill in a small time frame of 12-48 hours.

According to Scott Cookman, a scientist who conducted a study of the Franklin Expedition and wrote the novel //Ice Blink, "//botulism symptoms include difficulty in swallowing, speech and respiration and double vision. Death results from paralysis of respiratory muscles, unless the correct antitoxin is administered immediately."

Fortunately, for the first winter and summer of the voyage, the crew ate three "hearty meals" a day, each of which were cooked satisfactorily enough to kill the bacteria. The good fortune wasn't to last. In the winter of 1846, lean rations were implemented in order to preserve energy; only one of the three daily meals was cooked, leaving the other two more or less "raw." It is also theorised that, while energy was used more carefully, food was given more freely. Winter at sea forced the men below deck, to spend most of their time on idle activities, such as sleeping and eating. The frequency of both activities would have increased, hence the crew would have eaten more, unaware that they were speeding up the process of food poisoning.

To make matters worse, it is believed that the crew was concurrently being poisoned by lead. Not only did the tins themselves contain traces of lead, but the solder used to seal the tins also contained large amounts of lead. It was later found that during the drying process, the solder began to drip down the inside of the tins and contaminated the food. Whether the men were poisoned by the spoiled food or the lead seeping into it, consuming food from the tins would have slowly but surely killed them.

During an investigation conducted in 1850 it was found that the tins taken on the voyage contained a higher lead content than was acceptable (10% tin and 90% lead). Symptoms of lead posioning include delusions, the weakening of muscles and bones and an inability to make good decisions.

It is possible that the sailors may have misinterpreted their symptoms, incorrectly attributing their declining health to scurvy, a common affliction among sailors. Once they had run out of lemon juice, they would have tried to combat scurvy by consuming more vegetables and soup, both of which were stored in the poisonous tins.

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__ Cannibalism __ When the two ships orginally went missing and search parties failed to discover any trace of them, it was suggested that the desperate sailors had resorted to consuming the only food they could find, each other, and that as such there were no remains to be found.

One such search was led by Dr. John Rae, who famously exclaimed that 'British sailors would never do such a thing!', when asked to comment on the possibility of cannibalism at the end of the Franklin expedition. He argued that such an occurence was unbefitting of men with military training. However, in Rae's report to the British Admiralty in 1854, he detailed his findings, many of which appeared to support the suggestion of cannibalism. Relevant excerpts from Rae's report can be found here.

Rumours of cannibalism can be traced back to Franklin's first Arctic expedition. Six men who had been part of the //Greely// expedition (1881-4) survived that fateful voyage to give testimonies supporting the rumours of cannibalism. Although no such first-hand accounts are available of the final Franklin expedition, there is plenty of other evidence to support this particular, gruesome theory.

As part of his search mission, Dr. Rae spoke to a number of native Inuk people from King William's Island. They told Rae of a group of men they had come across who had managed to convey the stranding of their ship in ice and their desperation for food. Although the Inuk people offered them seal meat, the men refused and communicated that they were travelling north in the hope of catching deer to eat. The Inuk did not encounter the men again, and told Rae they believed cannibalism had been a factor in the disappearance of the men.

 In 1881, Professor Owen Beattie led his own investigative team to King William's Island. Upon discovering numerous human remains he conducted a number of examinations on the bodies. The remains, found at Erebus Bay on King William's Island, were at first thought to be those of eight individuals, due to the discovery of only eight mandibles.  Scientific analysis, however, showed that the remains belonged to at least eleven individuals. Beattie found a cut mark on one crew member's femur bone, as well as knife marks on numerous pelvic girdles, clavides and vertebrae (neck area). 25% of the bones were found to have 2-27mm cuts on them, many of the marks being close to the arteries.

Forensic evidence rules out the possibility of the cuts being from animal origin. The width ofthe cuts was too narrow, the spacing too wide and the borders too sharp for it to be consistent with an animal's teeth or claws. Beattie's investigations concluded that the cuts were made by straight-edged blades such as knives.

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Even so, there is still a feasible argument for the cuts not being cannibalistic in origin, perhaps being surgical cuts intended to remove frostbitten flesh, or evidence of a Native attack. The latter is widely considered unlikely however, as the Inuit people had previously been generous to the sailors, offering them food, and attacking them would have been inconsistent with their generosity. The men of the ships were also well armed and well trained, making it unlikely that they would have been so overcome by a native attack. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Back to top

__ Starvation __ <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Over the years and argument has built up that the men would have realised their food was unsafe and stopped eating anythign they had brought with them. Many support Rae's earlier protestations that the men would never have become so desperate as to eat each other. There is a theory that the men, with nothing but their comrades to act as food, starved to death. However as there is inadequate evidence to support this theory, it is generally dimissed in favour of the two previously mentioned.

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__ Sources __
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px;">Beatie, Owen. //Frozen in Time//. (Geiger, John). Place: Douglas and McIntyre Limited., March 2000.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px;">Cookman, Scott. //Ice Blink.// Place: John Wiley and Sons Inc., January 2000.
 * //The Franklin Trail - Cannibalism,// [], cited 06/08/2011

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