Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, researchers extracted DNA from his hair looking for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that plagued him.
They were unable to figure out the German composer’s deafness and severe stomach ailments. However, they found that in addition to a genetic risk for liver disease, he had a hepatitis B infection that damaged his liver in the last few months of his life.
These factors, along with his chronic drinking, were probably enough to cause liver failure, which is widely believed to have led to his death. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology.
This Sunday marks the 196th anniversary of Beethoven’s death in Vienna on March 26, 1827, at the age of 56. The composer himself wrote that after Beethoven died, he wanted his health problems to be examined by his doctor.
“Especially in the case of Beethoven, illness sometimes greatly restricted his creative work,” says study author Axel Schmidt, a geneticist at the University Hospital Bonn in Germany. . “And what was behind it was always a mystery to doctors.”
Since his death, scientists have long attempted to piece together Beethoven’s medical history, offering a variety of possible explanations for his many ailments.
Now, advances in ancient DNA technology have allowed researchers to extract genetic clues from Beethoven’s hair, which had been cut and stored as keepsakes. We focused on five locks that are “almost certainly authentic” from
They also looked at three other historic keys, but were unable to confirm that they actually belonged to Beethoven. Previous tests on his one of these locks suggested that Beethoven had lead poisoning, but researchers concluded the sample was actually from a woman.
After cleaning Beethoven’s hair one strand at a time, scientists dissolved the pieces in a solution and fished out clumps of DNA, said study author Tristan James Alexander Begg, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge. Stated.
Johannes Krause, a paleogeneticist and author at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, explained that the hair’s DNA is chopped into small pieces, making it difficult to extract the genes.
But in the end, after using up about 10 feet of Beethoven’s hair, they were able to piece together a genome that could “quiz” signs of genetic disease, Krause said.
The researchers found no definite genetic signature that caused Beethoven’s gastrointestinal problems, but found that celiac disease and lactose intolerance were less likely culprits. The genome may provide more clues as we learn more about how it affects
The research also led to some surprising discoveries. When they tested DNA from living members of the extended Beethoven family, scientists discovered a discrepancy in her Y chromosome, which is inherited on her father’s side. His Y chromosomes in five men matched each other, but not the composer’s.
Begg said this suggests that somewhere in the generation before Beethoven was born, there was a “paternity event outside of marriage.” That is, children born out of wedlock in the composer’s family tree.
The key question of what caused Beethoven’s hearing loss remains unanswered, says Dr. Avraham Z. Cooper of The Ohio State University, who was not involved in the study. Genetics can be difficult to understand because it only describes half of the “natural and nurtured” equation that constitutes our health.
But he adds that the mystery is part of Beethoven’s fascination.
