Lead in Locks of Beethoven's Hair Offers New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness [View all]

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Last edited Tue May 7, 2024, 03:00 AM - Edit history (1)

- Locks of Beethoven’s Hair Offer New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness, The New York Times, May 6, 2024 Ed. - Using powerful technologies, scientists found staggering amounts of lead and other toxic substances in the composer’s hair that may have come from wine, or other sources. By Gina Kolata.
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(Photo: Two authenticated locks of Beethoven’s hair collected by Alexander Thayer, which were found to contain astounding levels of lead per gram of hair. Credit...Kevin Brown). Gina Kolata previously wrote about the medical and family secrets in Beethoven’s DNA.
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At 7 p.m. on May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven, then 53, strode onto the stage of the magnificent Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna to help conduct the world premiere of his Ninth Symphony, the last he would ever complete. That performance, whose 200th anniversary is on Tuesday, was unforgettable in many ways. But it was marked by an incident at the start of the second movement that revealed to the audience of about 1,800 people how deaf the revered composer had become.

Ted Albrecht, a professor emeritus of musicology at Kent State University in Ohio and author of a recent book on the Ninth Symphony, described the scene.

The movement began with loud kettledrums, and the crowd cheered wildly. But Beethoven was oblivious to the applause and his music. He stood with his back to the audience, beating time. At that moment, a soloist grasped his sleeve and turned him around to see the raucous adulation he could not hear. It was one more humiliation for a composer who had been mortified by his deafness since he had begun to lose his hearing in his twenties. But why had he gone deaf? And why was he plagued by unrelenting abdominal cramps, flatulence and diarrhea?

A cottage industry of fans and experts has debated various theories. Was it Paget’s disease of bone, which in the skull can affect hearing? Did irritable bowel syndrome cause his gastrointestinal problems? Or might he have had syphilis, pancreatitis, diabetes or renal papillary necrosis, a kidney disease? After 200 years, a discovery of toxic substances in locks of the composer’s hair may finally solve the mystery. This story began a few years ago, when researchers realized that DNA analysis had advanced enough to justify an examination of hair said to have been clipped from Beethoven’s head by anguished fans as he lay dying.

William Meredith of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State Univ. began searching for locks at auctions and in museums. Eventually he and his colleagues ended up with 5 locks that were confirmed by a DNA analysis to have come from the composer’s head. Kevin Brown, an Australian businessman with a passion for Beethoven, owned 3 of the locks and wanted to honor Beethoven’s request in 1802 that when he died doctors might attempt to figure out why he had been so ill. Mr. Brown sent 2 locks to a specialized lab at the Mayo Clinic that has the equipment and expertise to test for heavy metals... More, Gift Article,
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/health/beethoven-deaf-lead-hair.html