The immediate cause of Ludwig van Beethoven’s premature death was not lead poisoning. That’s the brief conclusion of a new study by biochemists from Harvard University. She dealt with speculation that the composer died of lead poisoning. And the research ruled out this assumption. The German composer had a number of health problems. He died at the age of 56.
Prague
4:38 p.m May 10, 2024
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Beethoven had a number of health problems Source: Profimedia
Using mass spectrometry, the researchers analyzed two of Beethoven’s locks. Both contained a large concentration of arsenic, mercury and especially lead. In one, the lead concentration was 64 times higher than normal and in the other 95 times. But the authors of the study definitively rule out lead poisoning as the cause of the composer’s death.
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But they still don’t know what he died of, and their study is just a piece of the imaginary puzzle about Beethoven’s death, as the biochemists who studied the hair say.
Harvard researchers explain the high concentration of lead in the musician’s hair by saying that it could have come from drugs, lead-containing ointments, or cheap wine that was sweetened with lead or stored in lead barrels.
His hair indeed
The study was published in the journal Clinical Chemistry and the researchers examined two curls. Specifically, the Bermann curl and the other, which is called the Halm-Thayer curl. There are quite a few clippings of Beethoven’s hair, and almost 30 of them are in the collection of the Library of Congress alone.
Beethoven had lifelong health problems and his friends came to him and begged for a lock of hair as a keepsake. A year before his death, Beethoven gave a cut of his hair to the pianist Anton Halm. This curl was acquired in the 19th century by the American Alexander Wheelock Thayer, the author of the first biography of Ludwig van Beethoven. That is why it is called the Halm-Thayer curl.
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And it was here that scientists already sequenced a year ago to make sure it was really Beethoven’s. During the year 2000, they tried to do a similar experiment, but found that the hair they were examining was female.
Fragile health
Beethoven had a number of health problems, mainly with digestion, liver and kidneys. Factor in his deafness, his explosive nature, chronic physical clumsiness and memory problems, and these are problems that can be attributed to the lead poisoning that has been speculated for years.
The composer’s difficulties gradually worsened and he became completely deaf 11 years before his death. He died in 1827 and he himself wanted the public to know the cause of his death. He already wrote it in 1802 in the so-called Heiligenstadt testament.
Zdeněk Novák, hof
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