Gideon Mantell - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Gideon Mantell spine injury, drawn after the spine was preserved in the Royal College of Surgeons

In 1852, Mantell took an overdose of opium and later lapsed into a coma. He died that afternoon. His post-mortem showed that he had been suffering from scoliosis. Richard Owen, his long-time nemesis, had a section of Mantell's spine removed, pickled and stored on a shelf at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It remained there until 1969 when it was destroyed due to lack of space.

Mantell's surgery, on the south side of Clapham Common, is now a dental surgery.

At the time of his death Mantell was credited with discovering 4 of the 5 genera of dinosaurs then known.

In 2000, in commemoration of Mantell's discovery and his contribution to the science of palaeontology, the Mantell Monument was unveiled at Whiteman's Green, Cuckfield. The monument has been confirmed as the location of the Iguanodon fossils that Mantell first described in 1822. He is buried at West Norwood Cemetery within a sarcophagus attributed to Amon Henry Wilds that replicates the sanctuary of Natakamani's Temple of Amun (Coincidentally the name ammonite is derived from Amun).