Was Jane Austen’s mysterious death at the age of 41 due to arsenic poisoning?
Was Jane Austen’s mysterious death at the age of 41 due to arsenic poisoning?
Christopher D. Shea and Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times (Reported by National Post) March 10, 2017
The cause of Jane Austen’s mysterious death at age 41 has been much pondered over the years. Was it a hormonal disorder? Cancer? Complications from drinking unpasteurized milk? New research by the British Library suggests a more dramatic possibility: arsenic poisoning.
Researchers at the library, working with the London optometrist Simon Barnard, recently examined three pairs of glasses believed to have belonged to Austen, and said that they show evidence that her vision severely deteriorated in her final years.
That kind of deterioration further suggests cataracts, and cataracts may indicate arsenic poisoning, Sandra Tuppen, a curator of archives and manuscripts at the library, wrote in a blog post on the library’s website on Thursday.
But not all scholars are buying the arsenic theory. Janine Barchas, an Austen expert at the University of Texas at Austin, called the arsenic theory a “quantum leap” and referred to the blog post’s splashy web headline (and the library’s promotion of the post) as “a smidgen reckless.”
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