Genetic sleuthing points to liver disease, viral hepatitis and alcohol consumption as causes of the composer’s demise.
In the autumn of 1802, some 25 years before his death, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a letter to his brothers. The famous composer, distraught about his encroaching loss of hearing, implored them to seek out his physician after his death and “beg him in my name to describe my malady”.
Unfortunately, the cause of Beethoven’s hearing loss remains a mystery, but the analysis suggests that the composer probably died from liver disease brought on by a combination of factors. The study is published this week inBegg tested eight locks that are claimed to be from Beethoven. Five matched each other and were assumed to be authentic samples of the composer’s hair.
DNA extracted from hair cut from the composer’s head after his death also contained fragments of the hepatitis B virus, which can cause liver damage. “We don’t know when he got it or how he got it,” says Begg, who suspects that Beethoven had a chronic, dormant infection that was reactivated in the months before he died.
Ian Gilmore, a liver specialist at the University of Liverpool, UK, says that the hair analysis points to various potential causes of liver cirrhosis, and “the truth probably lies in the interaction between several of these”.The cause of Beethoven’s hearing loss remains a mystery. Begg and his colleagues scanned the composer’s genome for several conditions linked to hearing loss, including Paget’s disease and lupus.
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