Hartnell fact time again? Hartnell fact time again!
We have a pretty spot-on timeline of the last few months of John Hartnell's life thanks to Hartnell's Time Machine—which is to say, his nails.
These three graphs show the amount of copper, zinc, and lead in John's system from the time the Expedition was in Greenland to his death on January 4th, 1846. It's how we know he had a critical zinc deficiency, and it shows how the concentration of led in his body was higher when he was in England, and lower as the Expedition progressed.
Incredibly, because of this study, we can nearly tell the exact date John started to get sick—November 17th, 1845. There are brief spikes in copper and zinc (and a wee bit of lead) in early December—possibly due to applications of medicine and food as someone tried to help him get well. The final, massive spike at the end is his body breaking itself down, trying to find any and all nourishment to prolong its life as long as it could. We know from Inglefield & Sutherland's examination that they were able to identify a "wasting illness" when they felt his body, and Beattie's team in 1986 found no content in his stomach or bowels, so he hadn't eaten anything for some time before his death.
Unless we had a literal time machine, we don't know what his last days were like. This study, though, manages to give us a better idea of what might have happened.
We know his zinc deficiency was pronounced, so he probably would have had symptoms like night blindness, loss of appetite, exhaustion, irritability, hair loss, slow wound healing, and GI issues like loose stool (sorry buddy). We also know from his x-rays that he had prior injuries to his neck, shoulders, and ankles. Some were older injuries, some were newer. It's entirely possible that his symptoms of zinc deficiency and TB lowered his lack of awareness, leading to workplace injuries.
I know I kind of tease about John "Glass Bones and Paper Skin" Hartnell, but I'm fully aware that the last months, weeks, and days of his life were truly miserable. He was most definitely in pain, batting a thousand against a body that was fighting itself and trying to win.
Maybe people around him—crewmates he'd known from his time on the Volage, his own family—noticed a change in his personality. Maybe they saw the exhaustion on his face, him wincing in pain when he moved the wrong way, pushing food around his plate with disinterest, maybe he snapped at them or said something uncharacteristic that set off alarm bells. Someone, somewhere, knew something was wrong. At some point around late November and early December, he started getting treatment. By then, though, it was far too late.
It's a creative exercise more than anything. Like I said, we can't know what the end of his life look like. We have to take scans of his nails, x-rays, and the appearance of a thrice-exhumed mummy to guess. But we also can see that someone loved him enough to give him the appearance in death of being comfortable. Knowing what we do know about how much discomfort he had to be in, this might have been completely intentional. He was given a pillow, blankets, extra clothes, a hat. Even at the end of the world, he was loved.
gracieabrams
pixelskylines
gamechangershow
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
yousharknotpass
