Lead Poisoning Hastened Beethoven’s Demise

It all started in a small, pear-shaped metal box labeled “Beethoven” containing thirteen skull fragments. Two of these fragments underwent forensic testing at the University of Munster, the results of which were compared to the DNA from a lock (the “Guevara” lock) of Beethoven’s Hair to confirm Beethoven as the owner.

The owner of the box - Paul Kaufman - who inherited the remains through a relative, has the fragments on long term loan to the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies. Apparently the Seligmann-Kaufman’s family obtained the skull fragments in 1863 when Beethoven’s remains were exhumed to preserve them in a new casket.

Today researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory, using the fragments described above definitively confirmed the presence of significant levels of lead - more than 100 times higher than nominal levels for Beethoven’s time (Graphs of Results).

“The testing indicated large amounts of lead in the Beethoven bone sample, compared to the control,â€? said Bill Walsh, chief scientist at the Pfeiffer Treatment Center in Warrenville, Ill., and director of the Beethoven Research Project. “There’s no doubt in my mind . . . he was a victim of lead poisoning”

The testing was performed with the Advanced Photon Source X-Ray Scanner at the Argonne Lab using a process known as “X-Ray Fluorescence Intensity”.

Beethoven is well known to have suffered through terrible health problems throughout his life, problems he often wrote about saying in a letter dated 1801:

… but that jealous demon, my bad health, has thrown a wicked hindrance my way: for three years my hearing has been getting ever weaker, and this is supposed to be on account of my abdomen [Unterleib], which, as you know, was already miserable then [der schon damals wie Du weist elend war], but here it has become worse because I was constantly burdened with diarrhea [Durchfall]…¹

While the source of the lead is not known, this discovery now definitively confirms the source of the health problems that plagued Beethoven throughout his life to be lead, and further puts to rest any speculation that he did not contract or suffer from syphilis (due to undetectable mercury levels). It is unlikely that lead was the cause of Beethoven’s deafness.

Note that this theory is not new as similar results were obtained from tests done on two of Beethoven’s hairs in 2000 (CBC News Story) but were not conclusive. During the tests the hairs were destroyed, and the owner was not willing to perform further testing until recently when less invasive tests became available.

[From: The Washington Post]

Interview and video available at PBS

¹www2.sjsu.edu/depts/beethoven/skull/abdominal.html

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 14:15:00 and is filed under Composers, Music History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.