The Poison Review

Beethoven had episodes of extreme illness during the later part of his life, with symptoms that included severe gastrointestinal distress.  Historians have long speculated that this might have represented lead toxicity brought on my drinking wine sweetened with the heavy metal.  Recent tests on samples of Beethoven’s hair and skull seemed to support this hypothesis, which might also have explained his famous irritability and problems with memory.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that new tests do not support the lead theory of Beethoven’s final illness. Andrew C. Todd, a lead expert at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, retested a sample of Beethoven’s skull and found that it did not contain abnormally high levels of lead.  However — and the Times article does not stress this — a second skull sample apparently contained 3-4 times the expected lead level, and Dr. Todd could not explain the discrepancy.  To my mind, though, it’s hard to see how someone suffering from the neurological impairment and decreased concentration of lead toxicity could compose the last movement to String Quartet # 16 in F major, completed less than 6 months before the composer died in March, 1827: