Beethoven is said to have become deaf because of a bad habit that many people have today.
Ludwig van Beethoven is well known for being a musical prodigy despite being deaf. The German composer began losing his hearing at the age of 20. This worsened over the years, the musician finally died deaf in 1827, at the age of 56. The cause of his deafness has always raised questions: some had mentioned listening to music too loudly, others lupus or syphilis, but new analyzes gave a completely different version.
A study by Harvard Medical School researchers published in the journal Clinical Chemistry reports the results of an examination of two locks of Beethoven’s hair. A high level of lead was found: 380 micrograms in the first wick and 258 in the second, whereas usually it is around 4 micrograms. His hair also contained 13 times the normal level of arsenic and four times the normal level of mercury. From the end of the 18th century, lead was one of the main causes of poisoning, particularly because of the powders used in wigs. It often caused severe stomach aches and headaches. This could also explain the composer’s deafness.
How can we explain this significant presence of lead in Beethoven’s body? Because he was doing something that almost all adults do fairly regularly today: drinking wine. At the time, lead sugar was often added to cheap wine to soften the taste and preserve it better, a practice now banned. “In addition, lead removes the cloudiness of the glass, which gives it a more pleasant appearance,” explains Nader Rifai, one of the authors of the study. However, Beethoven was very fond of wine and drank a liter of it every day at lunch. Several doctors at the time advised him to reduce his consumption. It is also likely that he was drinking from a lead container.
Freshwater fish, adored by the musician, could also be contaminated with lead, as Nader Rifai explained to Times : “He was known to eat a lot of fish, and the Danube at the time was very heavily polluted by all the industry.” Lead was also found in Beethoven’s treatments to relieve his illnesses.
The researchers, however, expressed a small reservation regarding the agreement between the levels of lead in the composer’s hair and those in his blood. Lead would not be responsible for Beethoven’s premature death. According to a recent studyhis death is explained more by hepatitis B combined with liver problems of genetic origin.