In 1802, Ludwig van Beethoven asked his brothers to request that his doctor, J.A. Schmidt, describe his health problems—his progressive hearing loss—to the world upon his death so that “as far as possible, at least the world will be reconciled to me after my death.” Now, a team of researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on March 22 analyzed DNA they lifted and pieced together from locks of Beethoven’s hair to shed light on his health problems.
The researchers’ goal was to investigate Beethoven’s progressive hearing loss that began in his mid- to late-20s and eventually led to him being functionally deaf by 1818, according to Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. They analyzed five locks of hair attributed to Beethoven to sequence his genome to 24-fold genomic coverage.
The researchers couldn’t find a definitive cause for Beethoven’s deafness or gastrointestinal problems, but they did find significant genetic risk factors for liver disease. They also found evidence of an infection with hepatitis B virus in at latest the months before the composer’s final illness, which likely contributed to his death.
Beethoven’s DNS reveal a surprising extramarital affair
As commonly happens when people analyze DNA, the researchers uncovered another surprise. Beethoven’s Y chromosome doesn’t match that of any of five modern-day relatives carrying the same last name and sharing, on the basis of genealogical records, a common ancestor with Beethoven’s paternal line. The finding points to an extramarital “event” somewhere over the generations on Beethoven’s father’s side. This could have been Beethoven’s father (which means Beethoven would have been an illegitimate son) or somewhere else on his father’s side.
“This finding suggests an extrapair paternity event in his paternal line between the conception of Hendrik van Beethoven in Kampenhout, Belgium in c.1572 and the conception of Ludwig van Beethoven seven generations later in 1770, in Bonn, Germany,” says Tristan Begg, now at the University of Cambridge, U.K.
The finding is odd given the many rumors of his illegitimacy during his life. The German encyclopedia Konversations-Lexikon named his father as Frederick the Great, while a dictionary of musicians published in France said he was the son of Friedrich Wilhelm II, both Kings of Prussia. Beethoven only denied the rumors at the end of his life after a childhood friend, Franz Wegeler, sent a letter chastising him for failing to defend the honor of his mother.
“Make known to the world the integrity of my parents, and especially of my mother.”
How Beethoven’s DNA was studied
The idea for the study was conceived by Begg and study co-author William Meredith almost a decade ago, motivated by Beethoven’s request for postmortem studies to describe his illness and make it public. The team relied on recent improvements in ancient DNA analysis, which enabled whole-genome sequencing from small quantities of historical hair.
No explanation found for Beethoven’s gastrointestinal problems
Medical biographers had earlier suggested that Beethoven had many substantially heritable health conditions, but the researchers couldn’t find in his genome an explanation for his hearing disorder or gastrointestinal problems. They did find that he was genetically predisposed to liver disease.
Further study of other DNA in his samples suggested that he also had a hepatitis B infection at least during the months leading up to his death. “Together with the genetic predisposition and his broadly accepted alcohol consumption, these present plausible explanations for Beethoven’s severe liver disease, which culminated in his death,” they write.
Lead poisoning? Nope.
The researchers note that previous analyses suggesting that Beethoven had lead poisoning turned out to have been based on a sample that wasn’t Beethoven’s at all. Instead, it came from a female. Future studies testing for lead, opiates, and mercury must be based on authenticated samples, they say.
The DNA extracted from Beethoven’s hair is genetically most similar to that of people living in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, consistent with Beethoven’s known German ancestry. Future studies of Beethoven’s samples collected over time might help to clarify when he got infected with hepatitis B. Meanwhile, more studies of his close relatives might help to clarify his biological relationship to modern descendants of the Beethoven family.
Image Credits
In-Article Image Credits
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven when composing the Missa Solemnis via Wikimedia Commnos by Joseph Karl Stieler with usage type - Public Domain. 1820Featured Image Credit
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven when composing the Missa Solemnis via Wikimedia Commnos by Joseph Karl Stieler with usage type - Public Domain. 1820
