Starvation, scurvy, lead poisoning, and cannibalism ended a famous 1845 voyage through the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage, the subject of Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition (Vancouver: GreyStone Books, 2004; $15.95), by anthropologist Owen Beattie, who found the crew's gruesome remains in the 1980s. In this updated edition, Beattie gives the evidence for the crew having lead poisoning from tinned foods, which they ate to prevent scurvy (it didn't work). They were victims, quips novelist Margaret Atwood in her witty introduction, "of bad packaging."
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