The lands of silence : a history of Arctic and Antarctic exploration

ABSTRACT. The 'Franklin expedition' of 1845 set out to establish a 'northwest passage' between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but ended with the deaths of all 129 crewmen in the grimmest of circumstances. The hypothesis that lead poisoning may have contributed to the disaster is examined by re-analysis of the bone-lead content of seven skeletons in order to model statistically the likely variation in lead burden across the whole crew. Comparison of the estimated lead burdens with present-day data that associates lead with cognitive and physical morbidity suggests that a proportion of the crew may have experienced few or no adverse effects whilst those with higher burdens may have suffered some significant debility. It is unclear whether such debility would have been incapacitating or exceptional for the lead-contaminated environment of nineteenth-century Britain. Whilst lead alone may not have caused the disaster, it is proposed that high levels of lead may have interacted with other factors including dietary insufficiencies and individual constitutional differences to render some, but not all, of the crew more vulnerable to debility in the final throes of the expedition.

Section: General Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Historical Background To the Franklin Expeditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A re-analysis of the supposed role of lead poisoning in Sir John Franklin's last expedition, 1845–1848

Millar¹,

Bowman

Battersby

2014

“…As Belcher's judgment during the expedition has often been called in question (for example by Markham 1921), it might also be noted that, just as his ‘Protean’ symptoms were not those of scurvy, nor were they those of the syphilis that had led to the humiliation of the legal case brought by his wife for infecting her with the disease (Phillimore 1835). Had Belcher been suffering the mental, motor and sensory effects of the tertiary stage of the disease his incapacity would have been abundantly clear to all.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The winters while beset are known to have been intensely cold (Alt and others 1985; Gilpin 1850) and therefore exposed the crews to greater risk of fatal accidents and of succumbing to exposure because operations away from the ships were made more arduous. Cyriax (1939) and Markham (1921) speculated that the officers deliberately exposed themselves to greater risk while hunting to provide food for the others and paid a fatal price for their altruism. This ‘heroic’ proposal may have a basis in fact and was true of other expeditions.…”

Section: Scurvy and The Franklin Crewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The health of nine Royal Naval Arctic crews, 1848 to 1854: implications for the lost Franklin Expedition

Millar¹,

Bowman

Battersby

et al. 2016

ABSTRACT. Medical factors including tuberculosis, scurvy, lead poisoning and botulism have been proposed to explain the high death rate prior to desertion of the ships on Sir John Franklin's expedition of 1845-1848 but their role remains unclear because the surgeons' Sick books which recorded illness on board have eluded discovery. In their absence, this study examines the Sick books of Royal Naval search squadrons sent in search of Franklin, and which encountered similar conditions to his ships, to consider whether their morbidity and mortality might reflect that of the missing expedition. The Sick books of HMS Assistance, Enterprise, Intrepid, Investigator, Pioneer and Resolute yielded 1,480 cases that were coded for statistical analysis. On the basis of the squadrons' patterns of illness it was concluded that Franklin's crews would have suffered common respiratory and gastro-intestinal disorders, injuries and exposure and that deaths might have occurred from respiratory, cardiovascular and tubercular conditions. Scurvy occurred commonly and it was shown that the method of preparing 'antiscorbutic' lemon juice for the search squadrons and Franklin's ships would have reduced its capacity to prevent the disease but there were no grounds to conclude that scurvy was significant at the time of deserting the ships. There was no clear evidence of lead poisoning despite the relatively high level of lead exposure that was inevitable on ships at that time. There was no significant difference between the deaths of non-officer ranks on Franklin's ships and several of the search ships. The greater number of deaths of Franklin's officers was proposed to be more probably a result of non-medical factors such as accidents and injuries sustained while hunting and during exploration.

“…They are not, however, from the journal Scott kept in Antarctica: he wrote them back in England, and, while preparing his book, he was lunching daily at the house of his elderly patron, Sir Clements Markham, who was known to advocate this view (Lewis-Jones 2005: 197). Much later, in The lands of silence , Markham referred to this as ‘one of the noblest passages in Scott's great work’ (1921: 472). But he was careful to explain the context of the quotation and to include the sentences that precede it, both of which, as will be seen, are vital.…”

Section: Misconceptions About Scott's Attitudes To Dogsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use and abuse of dogs on Scott's and Amundsen's South Pole expeditions

Murray

2008

ABSTRACT. In the century since Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott led the first and second expeditions to reach the South Pole, commentators have frequently passed judgement on the different means of transport that the two explorers employed. In hindsight, and since he 'won,' they have consistently praised Amundsen for using dogs exclusively and criticised Scott for not doing the same. Surprisingly, however, almost no attention has been given to the experience of Amundsen's dogs, whose extreme suffering seems to have vanished into a collective blind spot. Here, with the aim of restoring balance to one part of the vexed historiography of the two explorers, that record is set straight. Amundsen's troubled and contradictory attitude towards his animals is also explored and common misconceptions about Scott's views on the use of dogs for transport are confuted.