On a tempestuous Monday in March of 1827, the eminent German composer Ludwig van Beethoven succumbed to a prolonged ailment.
Confined to his bed since the preceding Christmas, he was severely afflicted by jaundice, his extremities and torso exhibiting considerable swelling, and each respiration a taxing endeavor.
As his confidants meticulously examined his personal effects, they unearthed a document penned by Beethoven a quarter-century prior—a testament imploring his brothers to disseminate the particulars of his malady to the public.
Today, it is widely acknowledged that one of history’s most prodigious musical luminaries experienced functional deafness by his mid-forties.
This was a poignant and tragic paradox Beethoven desired the world to comprehend, not solely from a personal standpoint but also from a medical perspective.
The maestro outlived his attending physician by nearly two decades. Nevertheless, close to two centuries after Beethoven’s demise, a dedicated group of investigators embarked on a mission to actualize his final wishes in ways he could never have envisioned, by undertaking a genetic analysis of DNA extracted from authenticated strands of his hair.
Observe the accompanying video for a concise overview of these groundbreaking findings:
“Our foremost objective was to illuminate the health afflictions that plagued Beethoven, most notably his progressive deterioration of hearing, which commenced in his mid-to-late twenties and culminated in his complete deafness by 1818,” stated Johannes Krause, a distinguished biochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, during a press briefing in 2023, coinciding with the announcement of the research outcomes.
The fundamental etiology of this auditory impairment remained elusive, even to his personal medical attendant, Dr. Johann Adam Schmidt.
What initially manifested as tinnitus during his twenties gradually escalated into a diminished tolerance for elevated sound levels, ultimately resulting in the loss of sensitivity to higher frequencies, thereby prematurely curtailing his career as a performing musician.
For an artist of his caliber, this represented an unbearable irony. In correspondence to his siblings, Beethoven confessed to being “hopelessly afflicted,” to such an extent that he entertained thoughts of self-harm.
Beyond his auditory challenges, the composer contended with other significant health issues in his adult life. From approximately his twenty-second year onward, he reportedly experienced intense abdominal discomfort and recurrent episodes of profound diarrhea.
Six years prior to his passing, the initial indications of hepatic disease became apparent, a condition believed to have been a contributing factor, at the very least, to his demise at the comparatively young age of 56.
In 2007, a forensic examination of a lock of hair purportedly belonging to Beethoven suggested that lead poisoning might have accelerated his death, if not been the principal cause of the symptoms that ultimately claimed his life.
Considering the prevalent use of lead in drinking vessels and contemporary medical practices involving lead compounds, this conclusion was not entirely unexpected.
However, this most recent investigation, unveiled in March 2023, refutes that earlier hypothesis by demonstrating that the hair in question did not originate from Beethoven but rather from an unidentified female.
More critically, several strands of hair definitively ascertained as belonging to the composer point to his death likely being attributable to a hepatitis B infection, exacerbated by his consumption of alcohol and numerous other risk factors associated with liver disease.
“While we cannot definitively pinpoint the precise cause of Beethoven’s death, we can now confidently confirm the presence of significant heritable predispositions and an infection with the hepatitis B virus,” explained Krause.
“Furthermore, we have been able to eliminate several other less probable genetic etiologies.”
Regarding his other afflictions?
“We were unable to ascertain a definitive cause for Beethoven’s deafness or his gastrointestinal ailments,” stated Krause.
In certain respects, our understanding of the life and demise of the celebrated classical composer remains incomplete, leaving us with more unanswered questions.
Where did he contract the hepatitis? How did a lock of a woman’s hair erroneously come to be regarded as Beethoven’s for centuries? And what precisely underpinned his persistent gut discomfort and hearing deterioration?
Given that the research team was motivated by Beethoven’s own expressed desire for the world to comprehend his hearing loss, this outcome is somewhat regrettable. However, another intriguing revelation emerged from the genetic analysis.
Further comparative studies, examining the Y chromosome in the hair samples against those of contemporary male relatives descended from Beethoven’s paternal lineage, indicated a genetic divergence.
This finding suggests instances of extramarital sexual relations within the generations preceding the composer’s birth.
“This discovery points to an extrapair paternity event within his paternal lineage, occurring between the conception of Hendrik van Beethoven in Kampenhout, Belgium, around 1572, and the conception of Ludwig van Beethoven seven generations later in 1770, in Bonn, Germany,” stated Tristan Begg, a biological anthropologist now affiliated with the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
This discovery might represent more than the younger Beethoven could have ever anticipated, particularly considering the fateful directive he committed to parchment.
He could never have imagined the profound secrets that were being preserved as his companions and associates carefully collected hair from his person in the aftermath of that somber, stormy Monday evening in 1827.
This comprehensive research has been published in the distinguished journal Current Biology.
