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There are presuppositions which argue that Jane Austen might have been died due to arsenic poisoning.
STATES CHRONICLE – There are some new speculations which indicate that Jane Austen might have died because of arsenic poisoning, but there exists no palpable evidence. Some researchers claim that the evidence lies in her three pairs of glasses which had very sharp lenses. But what does this have to do with arsenic poisoning? These lenses could only indicate that she had cataracts.
Some speculate that arsenic poisoning is the cause of her cataracts
The writer died at the age of 41. Some studies indicate that if a person is poisoned with arsenic, he or she might develop cataracts. This is the conclusion drawn by specialists. Firstly, the glasses which were found do not indicate in any way that they pertained to Jane Austen or that she wore them. There is no evidence which attests that they were her glasses.
These glasses were discovered in a desk which is known to have been about the writer in the past. Secondly, there is no proof which could indicate that the writer had cataracts. Besides, there are specialists who claim that the first factor of cataracts is not arsenic poisoning. Sandra Tuppen, who I a curator at the British Library, has analyzed the glasses and stated that the tests which were performed unveiled that the three pairs of glasses feature “plus” lenses, being all convex.
The glasses do not prove that they were hers
This means that these spectacles would have been used by a person who was longsighted, meaning someone who was not able to see clearly when performing close-up tasks, like writing or reading. These types of strong glasses with convex lenses are usually being worn by old people who tend to become long-sighted after a certain age.
However, against all these ideas, if you still consider that Jane Austen has cataracts, we knew that arsenic poisoning is not the first factor which triggers this sight impairment. Based on the data revealed by the National Eye Institute, cataract represents a common eye impairment which affects thousands of hundreds of people who have not all been poisoned.
One of the plausible causing of this eyesight impairment is age. Many persons start developing this disease when they are in their 40s. And if we were to think of the life expectancy back when Jane Austen lived, then we infer that people tended to develop cataracts even earlier than the age of 40.
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