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More lead than soup in can
last update: Dec 17, 2009 09:47 AM
From various articles: Analysis of an 160-year-old soup can showed that the Arctic explorers were slurping lead. This could be the answer to the mystery of what was the cause of their death.
Soup can (Photograph - Handout, CNS)
Lead poisoning could be the prime suspect in dooming the 19th-century Franklin Expedition during its quest to transit the Northwest Passage. In an attempt to sail the Northwest Passage with two ships, Franklin disappeared with the loss of all hands, leaving a long-lived mystery about how they died.
Researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton and Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum performed tests on the can and its contents. Fiona McNeill, a medical science and radiation expert, said in a statement "The numbers showed us lead levels that were pretty much off the scale. It was an instantaneous test. We had already tested the soup found in the can and found high levels of lead, so we were certain we were going to find similar levels in the sealing solder."
Fellow researcher David Chettle, a McMaster medical physicist, said that the latest tests are not conclusive, but added that "it certainly makes it difficult to imagine any other source of lead" sufficient to harm Franklin and his crew. "I think it begins to close the circle of evidence around the role for lead," he said. "What we can't be sure of is how quickly that lead went from the solder to the soup."
Read more:
The Colonist, 15th December 2009
Discover Magazine, 16th December 2009
