New research confirms that Beethoven had lead poisoning — but it didn’t kill him
Association for Diagnostic and Laboratory Medicine (ADLM (formerly AACC))To this day, no one knows for certain what caused the liver and kidney disease that led to Ludwig van Beethoven’s untimely death. However, a new letter to the editor in the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine’s (ADLM’s, formerly AACC’s) journal Clinical Chemistry rules out one popular theory, showing that the composer was exposed to lead levels that were high — but not high enough to kill him.