High levels of lead detected in authenticated strands of human hair Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) suggest that the composer had lead poisoningwhich may have contributed to the ills he faced throughout his life, including deafnessaccording to new research.
In addition to hearing loss, the famous classical composer had gastrointestinal complaints recurring throughout his life, suffered two attacks of jaundice and faced serious liver disease.
Beethoven is believed to have died of liver and kidney disease at the age of 56. But the process of understanding what caused his many health problems has been a much more complicated puzzle, one that even Beethoven hoped doctors could eventually solve.
The composer expressed his desire for his health problems to be studied and shared so that “at least the world would be reconciled with me after my death.”
An international team of researchers went on a journey nearly a decade ago to partially fulfill Beethoven’s wish by studying strands of his hair. Using DNA analysis, the team determined which ones actually belonged to the composer and which were fraudulent, and sequenced Beethoven’s genome by analyzing his authenticated locks.
The discoveries, published in a March 2023 reportrevealed that Beethoven had significant genetic risk factors for liver disease is hepatitis B infection before his death. But the results provided no insight into the underlying causes of his deafness, which began in his 20s, or his gastrointestinal problems.
Beethoven’s genome has been made publicly available, inviting researchers around the world to investigate lingering questions about the artist’s health.
Meanwhile, scientists continue to figuratively examine authenticated locks of Beethoven’s hair with a fine-toothed comb, gaining surprising insights.
In addition to high lead concentrations, the latest findings have shown arsenic and mercury that remain trapped in the composer’s threads almost 200 years after his death, according to a new letter published on Monday (6) in Clinical Chemistry journal. And these insights could provide new windows not only into understanding Beethoven’s chronic health ailments, but also the complicated nuances of his life as a composer.
A complicated web reveals lead
Christian Reiter, now retired director of the Center for Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, had previously studied the Hiller Hair, a hair sample long attributed to Beethoven. He wrote and published a article in 2007 after determining high levels of lead in his hair, and suggested that lead may have contributed to the composer’s deafness and, potentially, his death.
In a twist, the study of 2023 genomic sequencing discovered that the Hiller Hair did not belong to Beethoven, and was in fact a sample of a woman’s hair. But at the time, researchers did not test Beethoven’s new authenticated hair samples for lead.
So the question remained: did Beethoven have lead poisoning?
A separate research team used two different methods to look for evidence of lead in two authenticated locks of Beethoven’s hair: the Bermann lock, estimated to have been cut between the end of 1820 and March 1827, and the Halm-Thayer lock, which Beethoven personally delivered it to pianist Anton Halm in April 1826.
It was very common during Beethoven’s lifetime for people to collect and keep locks of hair from loved ones or famous people.said William Meredith, Beethoven scholar and co-author of the 2023 genomic analysis study and the more recent study.
The new research detected incredibly high levels of lead in both samples: 64 times the expected level in the Bermann wick and 95 times the expected level in the Halm-Thayer wick.
“These levels are considered lead poisoning,” said study lead author Nader Rifai, professor of pathology at Harvard University School of Medicine and director of clinical chemistry at Boston Children’s Hospital. “If you walk into any emergency room in the United States with these levels, you will be admitted immediately and put on chelation therapy [que remove metais tóxicos]”.
Beethoven’s diagnosis
High levels of lead like those detected in Beethoven’s hair “are commonly associated with gastrointestinal and kidney diseases and decreased hearing, but are not considered high enough to be the sole cause of death,” the study authors wrote. Because researchers do not have samples of Beethoven’s hair from earlier periods in his life, it is impossible to understand when the lead poisoning began, Meredith said.
The study authors do not believe that lead poisoning was solely responsible for Beethoven’s death or deafness. But he suffered symptoms of lead poisoning throughout his life, including hearing loss, muscle cramps and kidney abnormalities, Rifai said.
Both wicks also contained increased levels of arsenic and mercury, about 13 to 14 times the expected amount, according to the study.
Paul Jannetto, study co-author and associate professor in the department of laboratory medicine and pathology and laboratory director at the Mayo Clinic, analyzed the samples and said he had never seen such high levels of lead.
But Rifai said he saw comparable levels of lead when he conducted research in two villages in Ecuador, where the main trade is enameling tiles with lead from batteries. Residents experienced mental delays, hearing loss and hematological abnormalities, which are common in liver disease, he said.
Lead exposure in Beethoven’s life
There is currently no understanding of the average amount of lead in the bodies of people like Beethoven who lived in Vienna during the 19th century, Rifai said.
He said he hopes to access old locks of hair that people have from their families to determine the population’s baseline level at the time, as there is no documentation.
But how did Beethoven end up with so much lead, as well as arsenic and mercury, in his body? The substances likely accumulated over decades of the composer’s life through food and drink, Rifai said.
Beethoven was known to like wine, sometimes drinking a bottle a day, and he drank leaded wine. A common practice dating back at least 2,000 years, creating lead wine involves adding lead acetate as a sweetener and preservative, Rifai said. At the time, lead was also used in glassmaking to give the glass a clearer, more attractive appearance.
Beethoven also loved to eat fish, and at the time, the Danube River was a major source of industry, which meant waste ended up in the same river that was the source of fish caught for consumption — and that fish likely contained arsenic and mercury, Rifai said. .
The report marks the first time that lead levels have been established for Beethoven and points to another possible cause of Beethoven’s kidney failure in the months before his death and the liver failure he experienced toward the end of his life, Meredith said.
Lead poisoning appears to be the fourth contributing factor to his liver failure, in addition to Beethoven’s genes for liver disease, his hepatitis B infection and his penchant for drinking alcohol, Meredith said.
Linking health and Beethoven’s music
The composer wrote a letter to his brothers in 1802 asking that his doctor, Johann Adam Schmidt, determine and share the nature of his “illness” once Beethoven died. The letter is known as the Heiligenstadt Testament.
But documents kept by Beethoven’s favorite doctor, who died 18 years before his patient, were lost.
In his 1802 letter to his brothers, Beethoven admitted how hopeless he felt as a music composer struggling with hearing loss, but his work prevented him from taking his own life. He said he did not want to leave “before having produced all the works that he felt the urgency to compose”.
“People say, ‘music is music, why do we need to know all this?’ But in Beethoven’s life, there is a connection between his suffering and music,” said Meredith.
May 7 marked the 200th anniversary of the first performance of the famous Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, widely considered his greatest work and his last symphony. Completely deaf at the time, Beethoven was on stage as one of the conductors, but the orchestra was instructed to follow the conducting of Beethoven’s friend, who was also on stage. The concert marked one of the most triumphant moments in Beethoven’s life, and the singers turned him to face the crowd as they applauded and waved their scarves at the beloved musician, Meredith said.
Listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (USA)
But at the end of the night, Beethoven was reunited with three of his friends who helped him organize the concert. What appeared to be a dinner to reward his friends actually resulted in Beethoven screaming and accusing them of cheating him out of money.
The outbreak was ironic considering Beethoven had been inspired while working on the Ninth Symphony in part by Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” and the symphony’s concluding themes include living in peace and harmony with one another, Meredith said. But above a sketch Beethoven made for the Ninth Symphony, he included the French word for despair.
“When you look back on your life, it’s a life so full of despair. He became deaf. He never found a woman he could settle down to love. He has had terrible abdominal problems since he was a child. He really had a hard time maintaining relationships with people,” Meredith said. “If you understand how much he was suffering and the paranoia he experienced due to his deafness, it makes the whole story of the Ninth Symphony much more complex.”
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