Bad Pork Latest Culprit Linked to Mozart’s Death
From Times Wire Reports
What killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? Pork cutlets. Maybe.
The latest theory about the composer’s death Dec. 5, 1791, at age 35 in Vienna suggests trichinosis, caused by eating undercooked pork infested by the worm. That could explain Mozart’s symptoms, which included fever, rash, limb pain and swelling, said Dr. Jan. V. Hirschmann of Seattle’s Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Just 44 days before his illness began, Mozart wrote his wife a letter: “What do I smell? . . . Pork cutlets! Che Gusto [What a delicious taste]. I eat to your health.”
The incubation period for trichinosis can be 50 days. “Mozart may have unwittingly disclosed the cause of his death,” Hirschmann said.