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## Scurvy, Lead, and the Question of What Killed Them
The Franklin expedition’s death toll — all 129 men within four or five years of departure — has been analyzed from multiple scientific perspectives, and no single cause has been established as the dominant factor.
Scurvy, caused by severe vitamin C deficiency, is the candidate that would have been most familiar to contemporary naval observers. The Royal Navy had known about scurvy and its prevention since James Lind’s work in the 1740s and had official policies about lemon juice provisioning since the 1790s. But the provisioning of the Franklin expedition’s tinned food — which was processed at temperatures that destroyed vitamin C — and the question of whether adequate anti-scorbutic supplies were included and consumed are subjects of ongoing historical discussion. The physical evidence at the various death sites includes bones with features consistent with severe nutritional deficiency, though attributing specific features to specific nutritional deficiencies in historical skeletal remains is methodologically complex.
Lead contamination is the hypothesis that attracted the most scientific attention in the late twentieth century, primarily because of Owen Beattie’s work on the Beechey Island burials in the 1980s. Beattie’s team exhumed the three graves at Beechey Island — Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine — and found the bodies in remarkable preservative states. Analysis of hair and bone tissue found elevated lead levels. Beattie proposed that lead leaching from the solder used to seal the expedition’s tinned food cans had progressively poisoned the crew, contributing to cognitive impairment, weakness, and susceptibility to other conditions.