Owen Beattie - Frozen in Time - The Fate of the Franklin Expedition

Kowal gave them a hand in melting the no gallons (500 litres) of clean, strained water required for the X-ray film development. Four large Coleman stoves were running in the tent constantly, and Kowal would bring in buckets of snow to melt. When a bucket was ready it was poured through a fine strainer directly into the large plastic garbage bins they had brought as chemical holders. When the tubs were finally filled with water (which took a whole day), Anderson mixed his chemicals. He then made wood-framed structures to hold the film sheets in their development frames, and these were lowered into the tubs. A 200-watt aquarium heater was then immersed in the liquid, which would bring the temperature up to the 68°F (20°C) thought necessary to provide controlled development.

The X-ray unit was a remarkably compact yet powerful instrument mounted on four tubular steel legs. Too fragile to risk being sent from their clinic at the Park Nicollet Medical Centre in Minneapolis as normal freight, Notman and Anderson had bought an airplane ticket for it, and everyone had a good laugh when they told how the machine, named Fragile Bulky Notman on its ticket, had “sat” in the first-class section at the front of the plane during the flight into Canada while they had to sit back in economy class.

When in use, the machine would be lifted over the body, its legs positioned firmly in the gravel. A focusing light beam on the bottom of the unit would then be turned on to illuminate and define the area to be X-rayed before a film plate was slid under the body.

Notman and Anderson tested their X-ray set-up on a polar bear scapula, found lying on one of the beach ridges near the gravesite. The results were very encouraging: holding the X-ray up, Notman described the bony details of the scapula to the others. Although they had been told by a number of experts that they were not likely to succeed in getting satisfactory X-rays under such difficult field conditions, his voice betrayed a note of gleeful triumph and self-satisfaction. Anderson’s face also seemed to say, “Well, they were all wrong! I knew we could do it!”

With this air of success, Notman and Anderson began the difficult job of X-raying the clothed John Hartnell. The X-ray area on the ground adjacent to the door was the same as where the autopsy was to be performed. When an exposure was to be made, either Notman or Anderson would put on a heavy, full-length lead apron and all other people in the tent would line up behind their protector. A loud call of “exposing” would be made for the benefit of people working outside the tent, so that they could move away to a distance of at least 100 feet (30 metres) before the exposure was made.

Anderson would then take the film plate into the darkroom for processing. Ten to fifteen minutes later he would emerge with the dripping film, which he hung by pegs to clotheslines stretched across the length of the tent. He and Notman would then examine the quality of the film and decide if there was any need to change their technique.

When the initial X-raying of Hartnell had been completed, Notman, Anderson and Amy stood in front of the row of hanging film to begin the preliminary examination. Anderson quickly pointed to the first X-ray: “He’s got a solid block of ice in his head.” The frozen brain tissue obscured the X-ray image, meaning they’d have to X-ray again after further thawing. Looking at the chest X-rays, Notman pointed to a small feature near Hartnell’s neck. “We’ve got our first metallic object,” he said. “It looks like a ring on its side.” (In fact, the metal was the frame of a decorative, embroidered button.) The chest X-rays were also confusing in that the internal organs appeared uncharacteristic and of unusual and varied densities—an unexpected series of observations on the first X-rays ever to be taken under such circumstances.

The bone structure was largely unremarkable, with the exception of a suspected compression fracture of one of the vertebrae in the lower part of the neck, representing a subacute injury that would not have been fatal. Hartnell may have fallen on the expedition. Some degenerative bone changes were also identifiable in the left shoulder and left elbow; found in someone so young, these sorts of bone changes (spurring and lipping) usually indicate a response to some form of injury. Also, one of the small long bones of the left foot showed evidence of osteomyelitis, or a bone infection, which could have made Hartnell susceptible to systemic infections (blood poisoning). Any of these injuries or conditions could have resulted in Hartnell being confined to sick bay, where he would have been given tinned foods as a medical comfort.

However, except for the details of the bones, little could be determined, let alone identified, from these first X-rays. Beattie wondered if the soft tissue preservation, which appeared so good to the eye, was in fact not good enough to allow X-ray information to be collected. Notman was frustrated with these first findings for, even in the desiccated and eviscerated Egyptian mummies he had studied in the past, there had always been some recognizable details in his X-rays. Only the autopsy would provide the answers.

It had been difficult to position the body with the clothing still on, and, spurred on by the confusing results of the first X-rays, Notman and Anderson wanted to try again after the clothing had been removed. Beattie, Amy, Nungaq and Schweger began the difficult task of unclothing Hartnell. “What we’ll do is ask the patient to sit up,” Amy said, a request for Beattie and Schweger to support the body while he attempted to remove the outer shirt. Trained in the medical field, Amy, Notman and Anderson always referred to the sailors as patients, reflecting their strictly professional attitude towards medical procedures and research, even in these extraordinary circumstances. After some initial attempts to slip the clothes over Hartnell’s head and off his limbs, it was decided that it would be necessary to cut the fabric. To minimize damage to the clothes, Beattie made a single vertical cut up the back of each garment. Doing this avoided the over-extension of the limbs and prevented any stress being placed on the material, which could have caused tearing both in the fabric and along the seams.

As the clothes slipped off the body the scientists made a truly astonishing discovery.

“Son of a bitch, he’s already been autopsied! Son of a gun!” said Amy. “We’ve got an upside down ‘Y’ incision. This sort or thing has not been seen before, this is absolutely unique.”

Running down John Hartnell’s chest and abdomen was a sutured incision that left no doubt that, in the short hours after his death, a surgeon on the Erebus, probably assistant-surgeon Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir, an anatomist by training, had attempted to establish the cause of death. It’s no wonder Amy was so excited at this discovery. Here he had an unprecedented opportunity to view the handiwork of a medical predecessor of long ago. By conducting his own autopsy, Amy would actually be assisting this long-dead doctor. The surgeon of the Erebus certainly anticipated that he would bring the information from his autopsy back to England. Now the full extent of that information would finally be known.

This important discovery begged the question: Why had the surgeon conducted an autopsy? To find out the cause of death, obviously; but what had prompted the decision? Perhaps the death of John Torrington of the Terror only three days before was part of the reason. There may also have been some symptoms associated with Hartnell’s death that left serious doubt in the minds of the surgeons as to the cause of death. A challenge faced Amy, who had to sort through the riddle.