Adventures with Beethoven

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Scientific Testing on Beethoven’s Hair

As noted in the section, “How did Beethoven lose his hearing?” hair samples from Beethoven have been used to try and answer questions about Beethoven’s health and hearing loss. One of the most prominent hair samples has been housed at the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University. According to the story, this lock of Beethoven’s hair originally belonged to Ferdinand Hiller, a fifteen-year-old composer and devotee of Beethoven. The day after Beethoven’s death, Hiller clipped a lock of hair from Beethoven’s body. Hiller later gave the hair to his son as a birthday present. The prized possession stayed in the Hiller family until World War II when it was given to Dr. Kay Fremming, a Danish doctor who helped Jewish families escape from Germany to Sweden. Most likely the hair was given to Fremming as a thank you from one of the families he helped. This sample was purchased at auction in 1994 and was tested, finding elevated levels of lead, which led some scientists and doctors to speculate that there was a correlation with Beethoven’s health problems.  

New research was recently published in the scientific journal, Current Biology, that sheds new light on what we thought we knew about Beethoven. In 2014, Tristan Begg, then a master’s student in archaeology in Germany, realized DNA analysis could be done on samples of Beethoven’s hair. Beethoven scholar William Meredith agreed, and he began looking for samples of Beethoven’s hair. With the financial support of the American Beethoven Society, Meredith purchased several samples, borrowed samples from a museum and a university, and used the sample at the Brilliant Center. In all, researchers tested eight different strands of hair thought to be from Beethoven.

The first major discovery is that the hair at the Brilliant Center did not belong to Beethoven. Based on the DNA evidence, the hair came from a woman of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Most likely Beethoven’s hair was destroyed at some point and replaced with hair from Sophie Lion, Ferdinand Hiller’s daughter-in-law. The hair sample did still show evidence of lead poisoning. The researchers are hoping to find Lion’s descendants to find out more about her. 

The other seven samples were tested as well. One other sample did not belong to Beethoven, one couldn’t be tested, but the other five had identical DNA. Two of the samples came from different places and backgrounds, but each had a well-documented chain of ownership. The researchers felt sure that they actually had Beethoven’s hair and could begin studying his DNA. Now they could try and figure out what illness Beethoven may have had and what had caused his deafness.

A common legend is that Beethoven drank a lot which led to the liver problems that caused his death. Although he had a family history of alcoholism, newer research shows that Beethoven did drink, but not in excessive amounts. Records left behind in some of Beethoven’s own writings describe his alcohol consumption and it isn’t excessive. Here the DNA shed new light on Beethoven’s health. In his DNA, Beethoven had variants that made him susceptible to liver disease. He also had traces of hepatitis B viral DNA in his hair, indicating he had been infected with the virus at some point. Hepatitis B is a disease that destroys a person’s liver. The disease is spread through sharing bodily fluid, usually either through infected needles or sexual contact. Beethoven didn’t use any injected drugs, was never married, and we don’t know anything about his sexual activity. One hypothesis is that Beethoven contracted the disease from his mother when he was born. This is a common method of contracting hepatitis B and can lead to a chronic, lifetime infection. Approximately one quarter of those infected with the hepatitis B virus will eventually contract liver cancer or cirrhosis of the liver, like Beethoven.

Another interesting finding in the DNA is that Beethoven was not genetically related to some of his other family members. A family in Belgium, with the last name van Beethoven, who had always proudly claimed that they were related to THAT Beethoven, learned that they were not actually related. The DNA suggests that at some point, one of Beethoven’s family members had an affair. Maarten Larmuseau, one of the co-authors of the study, believes that Beethoven’s grandmother had an affair and that Beethoven’s father was the product of that relationship. No baptismal records exist for Beethoven’s father. Beethoven’s grandmother had a drinking problem. Beethoven’s father and grandfather had an extremely contentious relationship. While all of this is circumstantial, it leads Dr. Larmuseau to believe that Beethoven’s father was born out of wedlock.

All of this research and analysis gave scientists new insights into Beethoven, his health, and his family life. But it still left unanswered questions. The DNA analysis did show that Beethoven did not have celiac disease nor ulcerative colitis, two diseases that may have explained some of his health problems. However, the DNA gave no indication to the big question, why did Beethoven lose his hearing? The researchers will continue to analyze the DNA to see if further questions and answers can be uncovered. Although we still do not know why Beethoven lost his hearing, scientific advances and painstaking research have given us amazing new insights into the life of Beethoven almost 200 years after his death.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/health/beethoven-death-dna-hair.html?searchResultPosition=1