Hold my Hair and Tell the Future How I Died
March 24, 2023 10:49 AM   Subscribe

What killed Ludwig van Beethoven? Was it Celiac disease? IBD? A neurological issue that also caused deafness? Liver disease? Cirrhosis?

In 1802, Beethoven requested that following his death, his disease be described and made public. Medical biographers have since proposed numerous hypotheses, including many substantially heritable conditions.

Two centuries later, a team of international researchers has answered that plea by sequencing Beethoven’s DNA, preserved in locks of his hair that collaborators and fans collected as treasured keepsakes.

What did they find? Welp, some of the hair samples were fake, but others were not.

The team assessed the authenticity of eight locks of hair claimed to originate from Beethoven. They required authentic samples to derive from a single male individual and to exhibit DNA damage patterns consistent with the reported antiquity of the samples. They sequenced a 24-fold coverage genome from the best-preserved sample among five matching samples using a highly sensitive protocol for historical hair and performed ancestry analyses on the expectation that this individual’s ancestry would be consistent with Beethoven’s documented genealogy.

What did they find? They found liver disease, a different cause of death than posited by Russell Martin in 2000's "Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Scientific Find, who suggested that Beethoven died of lead poisoning.

New DNA sequencing found substantial genetic predisposition, HBV infection, and alcohol consumption all present plausible causal factors in his liver disease, although the exact causal pattern could not presently be determined. More testing is to come with more answers to be discovered.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes (8 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's a fair cop.
posted by cirhosis at 10:54 AM on March 24, 2023 [8 favorites]


TIL the word "plumbism" - cool!
posted by tristeza at 11:59 AM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]


Eine kleine nacht Mord?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:49 PM on March 24, 2023


Also they found the surviving van Beethoven family has a completely different Y chromosome. So I think they concluded Beethoven, his father, or grandfather was the product of an extramarital affair. The mystery family of Beethoven's paternal line is unknown.
posted by Schmucko at 1:49 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]


So I think they concluded Beethoven, his father, or grandfather was the product of an extramarital affair.

What the paper actually says is
Considering the strong historical and genetic evidence for the authenticity of the five matching hair samples, and our Y chromosome evidence for the lack of discontinuity in the paternal lineage between Aert van Beethoven and the five living descendants, we conclude that the most plausible explanation for our observations entails that at least one extra-pair paternity (EPP) event occurred on Beethoven’s direct paternal line, between the conception of Aert van Beethoven’s son Hendrik in Kampenhout, Belgium, in c.1572, and the conception of Ludwig van Beethoven seven generations later in 1770, in Bonn, Germany.
An EPP event is a statement of fact, an extramarital affair is essentially a value judgment about something we have absolutely no information about.
posted by zamboni at 5:34 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


Fake hair? Like Beethoven’s Wig?
posted by TedW at 6:25 PM on March 24, 2023


Full disclosure: I am related to one of the purchasers of the fake hair, the Heller Lock. My relative was part of the American Beethoven Society, and I recall sitting around the dining room table discussing whether or not to purchase the Sotheby's offering.

Coming from a scrappy, lower class background I was very much against spending money on a dead man's hair.

I was overruled and so, the lock of Beethoven's hair was purchased.

It was analyzed and from those results came the book that posited Beethoven had been a victim of lead poisoning.

Turns out the hair was fake and I wonder how to break the news to my relative when I see them in the afterlife (unless Beethoven has already told them).
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:59 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]


Turns out the hair was fake and I wonder how to break the news to my relative when I see them in the afterlife (unless Beethoven has already told them).

I suppose that depends on whether the pearly gates are cultured.
posted by srboisvert at 8:00 AM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


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