New Delhi: Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair holds the key to the puzzle that was his host of ailments, hearing loss, and early death. Nearly 200 years after his death, scientists have identified dangerously high levels of lead in two locks of hair. The German composer’s penchant for cheap wine sweetened with lead could have led him down this path.
Beethoven, who gifted the world the Moonlight Sonata and the Fifth Symphony among other great compositions, began losing his hearing in his 20s. He had a bad liver, suffered from diarrhoea and cramps, and was completely deaf by the time he died at the age of 56 in 1827.
When an international team of researchers extracted DNA from preserved locks of Beethoven’s hair and analysed it, they found massive quantities of lead, along with arsenic and mercury. These findings were published on 6 May in a letter in the journal Clinical Chemistry.
One lock had 258 micrograms of lead per gram of hair, and the other had 380 micrograms. This is hundreds of times more than what’s found in most humans (less than 4 micrograms per gram of hair), according to a report on the study in the New York Times.
Such high levels of lead can be attributed to the composer drinking wine sweetened with lead. And Beethoven had a penchant for wine.
On his deathbed, he lamented over the 12 gifted bottles of wine that he would never get the chance to drink, saying “Pity, pity-too late!”
The arsenic levels, too, were 13 times higher than normal, while the levels of mercury were four times more than the safe limit.
“…higher hair lead concentrations, such as those seen in this study, have been shown to correlate with kidney and liver disease,” read the letter to the editor.
It’s the next chapter of a 2023 study which found that Beethoven had significant genetic risk factors for liver disease and contracted hepatitis B just before his death. At the time, the researchers did not find evidence of lead poisoning.
“Now with thorough testing they say that he had enough lead in his system to, at the very least, explain his deafness and illnesses,” according to the NYT report.
Also Read: A massive genetic study tells us about Indians’ ancestry & perplexing presence of Neanderthals in it
The hunt for Beethoven’s hair
The puzzle of Beethoven’s deafness and death has captured the imagination of popular culture and scientists alike. And it was the composer himself who set them on the path.
His suffering was so pronounced that in 1802, he wrote a document titled the ‘The Heiligenstadt Testament’ expressing his dolour and frustration with his condition. He requested that the cause of his illness be studied and shared so that “as far as possible at least the world will be reconciled to me after my death”.
It was common practice in Beethoven’s day to cut off a few locks of a loved one’s hair, and several tufts supposedly belonging to him have been preserved.
In 2007, researchers analysed the famous Hiller lock, named after the 15-year-old musician Ferdinand Hiller, who is believed to have snipped off some of the composer’s hair. The published 2007 paper noted that there were high levels of lead in the hair, and suggested that it may have impacted Beethoven’s hearing and hastened his death. But it didn’t end there. The 2023 genome sequencing study found that the Hiller lock was not Beethoven’s. It belonged to a woman. They authenticated five genetically matching locks of the composer’s hair through genetic sequencing but at the time did not test for lead.
Not until now, that is.
In the 19th century, lead was a pivotal ingredient of cheap wines added to the alcohol to enrich its flavour. It could also be found in other foods, ointments, and medicines. Apart from his outrageous appetite for drink, Beethoven was also heavily medicated for his various illnesses, taking up to 75 distinct medications at a time. This could explain the high concentration of lead found in his system.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
Also Read: Whole genome sequencing could be key to detecting drug-resistant TB, shows study