According to the inscription on Du Jun's tomb by Yuan Wailang Yuan Zhen, inspector of the old school of Emperor Taizong, "A boat sank between Jingchu and died in Yueyang at the age of 59." Like other languages, it seems that Du Fu died of aging. Other statements without evidence need not be analyzed.
Historical books such as The Book of the New Tang Dynasty and The Book of the Old Tang Dynasty are highly credible, but they are all narrated in Miscellanies of Tang People in the Ming Dynasty, and there are many fictional stories in Miscellanies of the Ming Dynasty, which greatly reduces the credibility of this cause of death.
Guo Moruo, a mainland scholar, said in the article Li Bai and Du Fu that when Du Fu died, he tended to say that Du Fu died of food. Guo Moruo cleverly concluded that eating meat and drinking alcohol would kill Du Fu. Because Du Fu eats carrion!
He believes that Du Fu did die of beef and liquor, but it was not "sudden death" but poisoning.
According to the Miscellanies of Zheng Chuhui in Ming Dynasty, Du Fu died of beef and liquor. In the summer of the fifth year of Dali (AD 770), Du Fu deserted to Hengzhou. On the way to Leiyang, the ship was well anchored in Tianyi Fang in case of flood. I was hungry for about ten days because of lack of food. When Nie, the magistrate of Leiyang County, learned about it, he sent beef white wine. Du Fu ate too much and died overnight. According to Mr. Guo Moruo's textual research, there must be a lot of beef sent by Nie county magistrate, but Du Fu didn't finish it all at once. In summer, it is not well refrigerated and easy to rot. The carrion is poisonous, and Du Fu may die of poisoning.
Could it be dead? To die is not to die in the general sense, but to die of acute gastric dilatation caused by overeating after not eating for a long time.
What if it is poisoning?
Floods can easily cause pestilence, just as animals can be infected by bacteria. Perhaps the meat sent by the county magistrate has turned into plague meat, but no one knows that the great poet is hungry and doesn't care about hygiene. He just filled his stomach, felt nothing in his mouth and died of food poisoning. If Du Fu really died because of eating bad roast beef, then the possibility of death is the greatest, because Botox especially likes to grow and reproduce in carrion, which is particularly toxic. Doctors believe that 2.5 grams of botulinum toxin can kill millions of people. If Du Fu died because he drank too much white wine, it was acute alcoholism. Because excessive alcohol will damage people's central nervous system, heart, liver and other important organs, making them acute necrosis. What's more, Du Fu's health was deteriorating in his later years.
It can be seen that according to the records, Du Fu died that night, that is to say, he died shortly after eating beef. If it is food poisoning, he should wait until the beef goes bad. Even if the environment was bad, it wouldn't get worse for a few hours. Because the county magistrate admired Du Fu, he sent someone to deliver food and drink. It was impossible to poison him intentionally. If you want to hurt him, don't worry about him. Is it necessary to poison him? Moreover, it is impossible for Du Fu to offend a small county magistrate because of offending powerful people, so Du Fu will not die of food poisoning, and the main reason should be acute bloating.
Acute bloating refers to the accumulation of a large amount of gas and liquid in the stomach in a short time, accompanied by nausea and vomiting, progressive dehydration and urinary incontinence, which often leads to death if not treated in time.
There are many reasons for acute gastric dilatation: A. About 70% cases are secondary to abdominal and hand surgery, which is related to swallowing too much air during anesthesia, reflex gastric motility inhibition caused by anesthesia and surgery. Because of the weakening of gastric wall tension and peristalsis, patients undergoing vagotomy are more likely to have gastric dilatation. B. Overeating is also an important reason. C In addition, it can be seen in patients with long-term oxygen inhalation, acute pancreatitis, uremia, liver cirrhosis complicated with hepatic coma, diabetes complicated with acidosis, and wearing plaster vests after spinal fracture. When the stomach expands to a certain extent, the muscle tension of the stomach wall weakens, which makes the junction of esophagus and door, stomach and duodenum form an acute angle, which hinders the discharge of stomach contents. An inflated stomach can compress the duodenum and squeeze the mesentery and small intestine into the pelvic cavity. Therefore, the superior mesenteric artery is stretched to compress the duodenum, resulting in distal pyloric obstruction. Excessive secretion of saliva, gastroduodenal fluid, pancreatic fluid and intestinal fluid can cause a large amount of hydrops in the stomach and aggravate gastric dilatation. The swollen stomach can also mechanically compress the portal vein, so that the blood can stagnate in the abdominal organs, and it can also compress the inferior vena cava, so that the blood volume will be reduced, which will eventually lead to peripheral circulation failure. Due to massive vomiting, fasting and gastrointestinal decompression and drainage, water and electrolytes can be disturbed, leading to death.
Generally speaking, he will die in about 3 days, but Du Fu is in poor health. During his ascent, he wrote Disgusting and New Stopped Turbid Wine Glass. The reason for abstaining from drinking was that he was in poor health. At that time, the environment was bad and the virus was getting bigger and bigger, which accelerated his death.
To sum up, Du Fu's main cause of death is acute bloating, and poisoning is the secondary cause, and poisoning here refers to eating without paying attention to hygiene, not beef deterioration as Mr. Guo Moruo said.