Harvard Medical School researchers say the long-standing theory that the German composer died of lead poisoning is not true.
Scientists have confirmed that Ludwig van Beethoven had lead poisoning, but it did not contribute to his untimely death.To this day, nobody knows for certain what caused the liver and kidney disease that led to his demise. The German composer died at the age of 56 in 1827, following several years of declining health.A new study by Harvard Medical School researchers shows that Beethoven was indeed exposed to high levels of lead.
Nader Rifai, a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, and his team tested several other locks of hair and confirmed they belonged to Beethoven by sequencing his genome.They then performed a toxin analysis on two of the locks, the Bermann and Halm-Thayer Locks, using a highly accurate technique known as mass spectrometry. This technique identifies chemical substances by cataloging gaseous ions in electric and magnetic fields according to their mass-to-charge ratios.
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