As the world marks today’s 200th anniversary of the premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, tests of samples of the composer’s hair suggest that the deafness and other ailments that plagued Beethoven may have been the result of lead poisoning, The New York Times’ Gina Kolata reports.
Laboratory analysis at that Mayo Clinic found that “[o]ne of Beethoven’s locks had 258 micrograms of lead per gram of hair and the other had 380 micrograms. A normal level in hair is less than 4 micrograms of lead per gram.”
“These are the highest values in hair I’ve ever seen,” Mayo lab director Paul Jannetto told Kolata.
The high lead levels may be attributed to Beethoven’s heavy consumption of poor-quality wine, which was often sweetened with “lead sugar.” The toxic metal also was used in fermentation and in the corks of wine bottles. Lead also may have been present in medications that Beethoven was taking, Kolata reports:
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