His death,
during that stormy period of public affairs, excited great attention,
and an opinion soon spread abroad that he had been poisoned. The king
ordered a judicial investigation; and it appeared that Dr. Rossi, the
physician of the late Prince, had, without directions, proceeded to
inspect the body twenty-four hours after death; that he had performed
this operation with great negligence, omitting many things which the law
presented, which the assisting physicians proposed, and which were
essential to render it satisfactory; and finally, that the coats of the
stomach, instead of being preserved and submitted to chemical analysis
were, according to his own acknowledgment, thrown away. The royal
tribunal adjudged him to be deprived of his appointment, and to be
banished from the kingdom. This decision would not of course, diminish
the suspicion already excited; and among other physicians, who were
consulted on the case, M. Lodin, professor of Medicine at Lynkoping,
presented two memoirs, in which he stated it as his opinion, that a
_slow poison_ of a vegetable nature, and probably analogous to the _aqua
tofania_, had been administered to the Prince, and that this had caused
the apopletic fit of which he died.
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