Research Shows Beethoven Had Lead Poisoning

Analysis of locks of hair clipped from the corpse of Ludwig van Beethoven 173 years ago indicate that the medical problems that plagued the renowned composer’s life were probably caused by lead poisoning.

Bad digestion, chronic abdominal pain, irritability and depression--and quite likely even his death at the age of 57--were produced by lead that Beethoven ingested from his environment, chemist William Walsh of the Health Research Institute said in a news conference Tuesday at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

“Beethoven saw physician after physician in search of a cure for his physical ailments,” all without success, Walsh said. “Independent analyses of Beethoven’s hair show that he had plumbism--or lead poisoning--which could explain his lifelong illnesses. It would also have had an impact on his personality and could have contributed to his death.”

Many scholars had thought that Beethoven died of syphilis, but the new study confirmed earlier ones that indicate otherwise. During Beethoven’s lifetime, mercury-containing drugs were the common form of treatment for syphilis. The hair analysis shows no trace of the element, which would almost certainly have been present if he had been treated with mercury drugs.

Further studies by chemist Walter McCrone of the McCrone Research Institute in Chicago also confirmed that the composer had not taken any painkillers, such as laudanum, during his long and painful final illness. That finding, confirming earlier studies by Werner Baumgartner of Psychomedics Corp. in Los Angeles, “implies that he decided to keep his head clear for his music,” Walsh said.

The hair’s history is surprisingly well documented. The day after Beethoven’s 1827 death from pneumonia, a lock of his hair was clipped by a young Viennese Jewish musician named Ferdinand Hiller. The practice was quite common, according to Ira Brilliant, founder of the Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State.

So many people clipped hair from the corpse that Beethoven “was practically bald when he was buried,” Brilliant said.

The lock of hair remained in the Hiller family for more than a century, until it was given to Dr. Kay Fremming, a Danish physician who helped save Jews in Nazi-occupied Denmark.

After Fremming’s death, his daughter put it up for sale through Sotheby’s in London and it was purchased for $7,300 in 1994 by Brilliant and Alfredo “Che” Guevara, a neurologist in Nogales, Ariz.

A few strands of the hair were destroyed in testing at the McCrone institute, but Brilliant said that did not bother him because the final result meshed with Beethoven’s own last wish. In a letter the composer wrote to his brothers in 1802, he said, “After my death, if Dr. Schmidt is still alive, ask him in my name to discover my disease . . . so at least as much as possible the world may be reconciled to me after my death.”

The lead studies were conducted by researchers at Argonne who used a technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. They found that the hair contained lead concentrations of at least 60 parts per million, more than 100 times normal levels.

How Beethoven encountered the lead remains a mystery.

“We do know,” Walsh said, “that it was far beyond what other people of that era had, because his symptoms were so devastating and so striking. Certainly not many others in the city of Vienna had those symptoms, or it would have been reported.”

Lead was widely used in Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century, according to Russell Martin, author of “Beethoven’s Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved,” which is to be released this week by Broadway Books.

“At the time, lead was found in paints, dishware and wine, where it was used to ‘plumb’ it, or take away the bitter taste,” Martin said.

Walsh also noted that, after Beethoven’s mother died when he was 17, the budding composer went to a spa where he reportedly drank large quantities of mineral water, which could have contained lead.

Lead poisoning can cause gastrointestinal disorders, depression, irritability and a variety of other physical and mental problems, including deafness. Walsh, whose institute is in Naperville, Ill., said he doubted Beethoven’s deafness was caused by lead, but that further research would be conducted.