LONDON—Just in the St. Nick of time, literary scholars and medical researchers from Oxford, Cambridge, and other top British universities released their findings on how several of the characters in Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” likely met their ends. Despite being from disciplines at the opposite ends of the spectrum—art versus science—the 10-person team were in unanimous agreement that the jovial but morbidly obese Fezziwigs succumbed to coronary artery disease, perhaps even suffering massive heart attacks shortly after the lavish party depicted in the novel. Likewise, they stated it was obvious Ebeneezer Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, died of congenital cardiomegaly or an enlarged heart, inherited from his mother (Scrooge’s beloved sister), Fran, who died young and was said to have a big heart. And they were largely in agreement, with only an endocrinologist dissenting, that Scrooge passed from diabetes, as his body likely wouldn’t have been able to go from decades of low-carb, watered-down gruel to decadent Christmas sweets and other sugary treats.
The causes of death of some of the other characters were not so definitive. Although the team did come to a consensus that the lecherous, downright horny Mr. Topper died of syphilis a few years after he shagged everyone, including Fred’s wife, at the Christmas party, there were three dissenters. The three in opposition to Mr. Topper’s demise from an STD felt that he was much more likely to have died in prison after being convicted of sexual assault. The scholars and researchers wrote that although their research was inconclusive regarding Tiny Tim’s end, his sister Martha Cratchit, best remembered for playfully hiding in a closet after returning from work at a milliner’s shop, probably died of suffocation in the shop’s basement given her fondness for practical jokes and the speculation that the hatter she worked for may have been a relative of serial killer Jack the Ripper.
