One touch of penicillin might have made the whole world French! If Napoleon had been granted only one day of good health at the battle of Borodino (1812), he must have destroyed the Russian Army, avoided having Moscow burned over his head and possibly gone on to seize all of Asia. Instead, he sat sluggish and feverish before his tent, in agony from a kidney ailment, racked by a cough and his voice fading to a whisper. May 28, 1938. (Photo by Keystone-Underwood).