Immortal Beloved
Holy Relics: Beethoven’s hair, Beethoven’s skull
The owner of the skull fragments has claimed that Beethoven hoped that one day his aches and pains (and his grumpy nature) could be explained by science.Therefore, when an exhumation and autopsy was conducted in 1863, the pieces were stored away for decades until science could find out the truth. The verdict is still out on how he could have ingested so much lead (from lead pipes or drinking too much mineral water or swimming in the spas?).
One recent analysis of his hair strands concluded that Beethoven's doctor hastened his death by administering lead to counter fluid in the abdomen, unaware that his liver couldn't handle it.
Whether lead poisoning caused his deafness is an open question, but such holy relics are just another form of fetishism. Worse, recent studies of the DNA of woolly mammoths in ancient hair suggest that one day afficionados may be able to clone Beethoven from his surviving hair.
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