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Comparing the true with the fictional
An anthropologist who examined
the bodies of sailors lost in Franklin's Third Expedition compares his
experience with the Arctica story.
Owen Beattie has been investigating
the loss of the Third Franklin Expedition for over fifteen years. Reports
of his team's findings were the inspiration for our fictional mystery.
Introduction
As a forensic anthropologist, my main work is to assist
police agencies, coroners, and medical examiners in identifying the bodies
of people who have died in our own time. However, I currently have students
working on projects relating to Franklin's lost expedition, and I still
have more than a few research articles to write on what we found.
Testing an Hypothesis
Part of our research involved performing autopsies
on the frozen bodies of three crewmembers of Franklin's expedition. These
men died in 1846, less than a year into the three-year expedition, and were
buried on remote Beechey Island. Like the reasons for the loss of the expedition,
it has always been a mystery why these three men died. We felt that, using
modern forensic science, we could learn more about the events that led to
the disaster by examining the bodies of these sailors. What we learned was
totally unexpected.
In science, when you approach a puzzle or a mystery to
be solved, you develop an hypothesis based on what is already known, and
then you test that hypothesis with an experiment or the collection of
new evidence. For Franklin's expedition, the old interpretation (hypothesis)
explained that it was scurvy and starvation that caused the disaster.
What our research discovered was that the men were being poisoned by a
relatively new invention: canned food. Lead in the solder (the material
that seals the food tin) was contaminating the food and poisoning the
men. In the Arctica mystery, I found it very interesting how the participants
sifted through the evidence and developed new interpretations on what
caused the deaths of the explorers. That's what we did, too!
The Doctor's Mistake
I feel that the way the explorers act in the Arctica
mystery is likely very accurate. On the Franklin expedition, the doctors
would be anxious to find out why men were sick and dying. But they did not
yet have sufficient knowledge about lead and lead contamination to have
suspected the tin food supply. The illnesses would have been a mystery.
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Frozen in Time:
sailor John Hartnell
25 years of age
died January 4, 1846.
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When we were doing the autopsy on John Hartnell, a 25-year-old Able-Bodied
Seaman from the Franklin expedition, we found that he had been autopsied
already by the expedition's doctors. We were able to determine with modern
tests that Hartnell was severely poisoned with lead, and almost certainly
died as a result. However, the doctors in 1846 would have no way of knowing
this. During our own autopsy we could see what the earlier doctors had done
as they cut with their scalpel blades: after opening the body cavities of
the chest and abdomen, they only examined the lungs and nothing else. Why?
What they would have found in Hartnell's lungs is what we found: evidence
of tuberculosis. Almost certainly they would have told themselves: "Hartnell
died of tuberculosis. Case closed; no need to look further." We know today
they were wrong.
This reminded me a lot of the actions of the young doctor
in the Arctica mystery. He would have felt confident about diagnosing
what was happening to the explorers, and would have been anxious to apply
the most current medical theory of the time to make his patients well
again. As you have read, this did not work for him either.
The Possibility of Disease
Another situation in the Arctica mystery brought back
some interesting memories. As we planned our project, and discussed all
of the possibilities that could arise while exhuming the bodies, we realized
that we would have to accommodate an unpleasant possibility: the sailors
may have died of a communicable disease. A virus, like smallpox, could have
survived in the frozen ground, only to be revived by our actions. Therefore,
part of our preparations was a plan for us to remain quaranteened on Beechey
Island if our medical doctor observed any evidence of a communicable disease.
Beechey Island is a perfect place for such a quaranteen,
as it is small and very isolated. Our project was quite self-sufficient,
and we could have remained there for however long would have been necessary
for our doctor to determine whether we had become infected or not. My
own feeling was that, because there were only three graves, with one of
the men dying over three months after the first two, the likelihood of
a major infectious disease was low. In the Arctica mystery, the situation
was different, and it clearly reminded me of how researchers need to prepare
for every possibility when exploring the unknown.
Connecting to the Past
Finally, I thought that having a living descendant
of one of the Arctica explorers engage in a search for answers was very
appropriate and thought-provoking. Much of our history is made real to us
today because we have direct memories and connections to events in the past.
These connections are through our ancestors. When we went to Beechey Island
to expose the bodies of the three Franklin sailors, I had invited a descendant
of one of the sailor's families to come with us. One day, as we melted the
ice from around the body of John Hartnell, my friend came face to face with
his great-great uncle. History is real.
Owen Beattie
Department of Anthropology
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
An Access
Excellence Science Mystery sponsored by Genentech,
Inc.
Copyright © 1997 Genentech, Inc.; all rights reserved.
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