Level 4 Reading 8A

Reading 8A

阅读8A

WHO KILLED THE EMPEROR? It's a story as compelling as any murder mystery. It begins in 1821 on the remote British island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. This is where Napoleon Bonaparte—one-time emperor of France— is held prisoner after losing his final battle at Waterloo in 1815. In February 1821, Napoleon's health reportedly begins to fail, and he dies three months later at the age of 51. An autopsy performed the next morning reveals a stomach ulcer, possibly cancerous. The real cause of death, however, has been in dispute ever since. Historians, toxicologists, doctors, and other experts— as well as amateur investigators—have considered the question of how and why Napoleon died. Many are convinced that he was actually murdered. So far, though, the experts have not been able to reach an agreement. Political Murder? Ben Weider, founder of the International Napoleonic Society, believes that Napoleon was poisoned with arsenic, a deadly chemical. Weider has relentlessly sought the cause of Napoleon's death for more than four decades and has put considerable resources into solving the mystery. In his view, Napoleon was poisoned by the British and by French royalists, who wanted him out of the way once and for all. Weider offers as the central point of his hypothesis the hair analysis done by Pascal Kintz, a French toxicologist at the Legal Medicine Institute of Strasbourg. Kintz analyzed Napoleon's hair and confirmed that it contained arsenic. While Kintz can't say exactly how or why the arsenic was there, Weider is convinced that "the poisoning of Napoleon was planned and deliberate."

世界卫生组织杀了皇帝？ 这是一个和任何谋杀案一样引人入胜的故事。 它始于1821年，位于南大西洋偏远的英国圣赫勒拿岛。 这里就是拿破仑·波拿巴——曾经的法国皇帝-- 1815年在滑铁卢的最后一场战役中失利后，他被囚禁。 1821年2月，拿破仑的健康状况开始恶化，三个月后去世，享年51岁。 第二天早上进行的尸检显示胃溃疡，可能是癌性的。 然而，自那以后，死亡的真正原因一直存在争议。 历史学家、毒理学家、医生和其他专家-- 以及业余调查人员，都考虑了拿破仑是如何以及为什么死亡的问题。 许多人确信他实际上是被谋杀的。 然而，到目前为止，专家们还没有达成协议。 政治谋杀？ 本·维德，国际拿破仑学会创始人， 认为拿破仑是被砷毒死的，砷是一种致命的化学物质。 四十多年来，维德一直在不懈地寻找拿破仑的死因 并投入了大量资源来解开这个谜团。 在他看来，拿破仑是被英国和法国保皇党毒死的， 他想让他一劳永逸地离开。 Weider将Pascal Kintz所做的头发分析作为其假设的中心点， 斯特拉斯堡法医研究所的法国毒理学家。 金茨分析了拿破仑的头发，证实其中含有砷。 虽然金茨不能确切地说砷是如何或为什么存在的， 维德坚信“拿破仑的下毒是有计划和蓄意的。”

Poisoned by His Wallpaper? David Jones, an immunologist at the University of Newcastle in England, has studied the walls at Longwood House, the building on St. Helena where Napoleon lived his last years. He found that the wallpaper was painted with a substance containing arsenic. According to Jones, conditions on the hot and humid island caused the arsenic to be released into the air. Then again, paint may not have been the only source of arsenic on St. Helena. Some toxicologists say that it is not uncommon for people who eat large amounts of seafood to have an unusually high level of arsenic in their blood. Because St. Helena is a small island 2,000 kilometers from the nearest mainland, it is likely that a large part of Napoleon's diet consisted of seafood. Additionally, the doctors who examined Napoleon's body after his death didn't find any of the usual symptoms associated with arsenic poisoning, such as bleeding inside the heart. Doctors Mistake? Steven Karch, an American heart disease expert, believes that Napoleon was killed by his own doctors. They gave him large doses of dangerous chemicals commonly used as medicine at the time. According to Karch's theory, the day before Napoleon's death, he was given a massive amount of mercurous chloride—a chemical once given to patients with heart disease. That and other medications, Karch theorizes, disrupted Napoleon's heartbeat and ultimately caused his heart to cease beating. While Karch admits that arsenic exposure was a partial cause, he believes it was the doctors' errors that actually caused the heart attack. Disease? Historian Jean Tulard believes that cancer and ulcers, as reported by doctors who examined the body, were the cause of Napoleon's death. Tulard remains unconvinced by Kintz's hair analysis. In his estimation, the hair that was tested may not even have been Napoleon's. Tulard also discounts the poisoning theory on the grounds that no one has yet found anything linking the British or the French royalists— or anyone else for that matter—to a plot against Napoleon's life. Still, doubts remain that cancer was one of the main causes. One cancer specialist believes that Napoleon probably didn't have advanced stomach cancer because people with that disease always lose a lot of weight. According to reports, Napoleon never lost any weight during his stay on St. Helena. In fact, he gained a fair amount.

被壁纸毒死了？ 英国纽卡斯尔大学的免疫学家大卫·琼斯研究了朗伍德楼的墙壁， 拿破仑晚年居住的圣赫勒拿岛上的建筑。 他发现墙纸上涂了一种含砷的物质。 据琼斯介绍，炎热潮湿的岛屿上的条件导致砷释放到空气中。 再者，油漆可能不是圣赫勒拿岛砷的唯一来源。 一些毒理学家说，吃大量海鲜的人并不罕见 他们的血液中砷含量异常高。 因为圣赫勒拿是一个距离最近的大陆2000公里的小岛， 拿破仑的饮食中很可能有很大一部分是海鲜。 此外，拿破仑死后检查他的尸体的医生 没有发现任何与砷中毒相关的常见症状，如心脏出血。 医生的失误？ 美国心脏病专家史蒂文·卡奇认为拿破仑是被自己的医生杀死的。 他们给了他大剂量的危险化学品，这些化学品在当时通常被用作药物。 根据卡尔奇的理论，拿破仑去世的前一天， 他服用了大量的氯化亚汞，这是一种曾经给心脏病患者服用的化学物质。 Karch推测，这种药物和其他药物扰乱了拿破仑的心跳，最终导致他的心脏停止跳动。 虽然Karch承认砷暴露是部分原因， 他认为是医生的失误导致了心脏病发作。 疾病？ 历史学家JeanTulard认为癌症和溃疡， 据检查尸体的医生报告，这是拿破仑死亡的原因。 Tulard仍然不相信Kintz的头发分析。 据他估计，被测试的头发甚至可能不是拿破仑的。 图拉德也否定了中毒理论 理由是还没有人发现任何与英国或法国保皇党有关的东西-- 或者任何其他人——密谋刺杀拿破仑。 尽管如此，人们仍然怀疑癌症是主要原因之一。 一位癌症专家认为拿破仑可能没有晚期癌症 因为患有这种疾病的人总是会减掉很多体重。 据报道，拿破仑在圣赫勒拿逗留期间从未减肥。 事实上，他赚了不少钱。

A Case of Revenge? "One of my ancestors did it," says Francois de Cande-Montholon. "I'm an aristocrat. Aristocrats don't like revolution, and Napoleon made revolutions." Cande-Montholon's great-great-great-great-grandfather—the Count of Montholon—was stationed with Napoleon on St. Helena. Napoleon had a love affair with the count's wife, and there were rumors that Napoleon was in fact the father of her youngest child. The count, it is observed, had control of Napoleon's wine cellar and food. Could he, motivated by revenge, have poisoned the wine? "Everyone is right, and no one is right," says Paul Fornes of the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris. Fornes has reviewed the 1821 autopsy report and other historical records and concludes: "Napolcon may have died with cancer, but he didn't die of cancer." Likewise, he says that although the hair analysis indicates the presence of arsenic, no one can say if he was intentionally given the arsenic, or if it was what ultimately killed him. In Fornes's opinion, evidence for murder by poisoning is inconclusive and wouldn't hold up in a court of law. Napoleon Bonaparte's body was returned to France in 1840, and it has rested in a grand tomb in Paris ever since. Some think it is time to open the tomb and to examine the remains using modern methods. French historian and doctor Jean-Francois Lemaire, however, believes that serious science and history have little to do with it anymore: "We are now in the world of entertainment," he says. It seems unlikely that new facts will settle the issue—people just enjoy the mystery too much.

复仇案？ 弗朗索瓦·德·坎德·蒙托隆说：“我的一位祖先做到了。”。 “我是贵族。贵族不喜欢革命，拿破仑发动了革命。” 坎德·蒙托隆的曾曾曾祖父——蒙托隆伯爵——与拿破仑一起驻扎在圣赫勒拿岛。 拿破仑与伯爵的妻子有染， 有传言说拿破仑实际上是她最小孩子的父亲。 据观察，伯爵控制着拿破仑的酒窖和食物。 他会不会因为复仇而毒死了酒？ 巴黎蓬皮杜医院的Paul Fornes说：“每个人都是对的，没有人是对的。”。 Fornes查阅了1821年的尸检报告和其他历史记录，并得出结论： “Napolcon可能死于癌症，但他没有死于癌症。” 同样，他说，尽管头发分析表明砷的存在， 没有人能说他是否是故意服用砷，或者这是否是最终杀死他的原因。 在Fornes看来，中毒谋杀的证据没有定论，在法庭上也站不住脚。 拿破仑·波拿巴的遗体于1840年归还法国， 自那以后，它一直安息在巴黎的一座宏伟陵墓中。 有人认为是时候打开坟墓，用现代方法检查遗骸了。 然而，法国历史学家和医生让-弗朗索瓦·勒梅尔， 认为严肃的科学和历史与此无关： 他说：“我们现在身处娱乐世界。”。 新的事实似乎不太可能解决这个问题——人们只是太喜欢这个谜了。

♪