Content warning: gross medical/poop stuff. You’ve been warned.

For those who don’t know an Ostomy or Stoma is when part of the intestine is brought through a surgically created opening in wall of the abdomen and a bag is attached to collection waste (poop).

On almost every list of “Celebrities you didn’t know had ostomies” Napoleon Bonaparte is on there. Some say the opening was created when he was shot, others reference his stomach cancer. Many say the stoma bag was made from a goat bladder.

However I have seen no references to the source of this information. Surely there would have been surgery notes, a journal entry by the doctor who did it, or news articles by the English making fun of him for having a goat bladder full of poop attached to his person. I obviously don’t expect to read the actual primary source in French but I’d like to know if they even exist.

What I think is that people saw paintings where he had his hand in his waistcoat, combined that with the fact he died of stomach cancer, and decided it would make sense that he had an Ostomy. And now it’s a myth that refuses to die. However if I’m wrong please correct me.

I help teach a class on nutrition for patients with new ostomies and the slideshow we use says Napoleon Bonaparte had an Ostomy. I didn’t make the slideshow and it’s been bothering me for two years. We’re making a new slideshow and I’m going to remove the Napoleon bit but I wanted to ask, why do people believe he had an Ostomy in the first place?