More lead in Beethoven’s head than we thought

The last analysis of Beethoven’s hair, taken a year ago, said the amount of lead in his body was not sufficient to cause deafness. Now, a group of scientists, in a letter to Clinical Chemistry, say they’ve changed their minds as a eesult of further investigations. The levels of lead are the highest they have ever seen.

Here’s a sample of the scientists’ letter (to be taken with a pinch of something):

Here we describe, for the first time, high lead concentrations in 2 independent and authenticated locks of hair from Beethoven, the Bermann (0.0413 g collected between late 1820 and March 1827) and the Halm-Thayer (0.0284 g collected April 1826) Locks. The authentication of the 2 locks was previously confirmed in a landmark report of the sequencing of Beethoven’s whole genome (2). Five of the 8 locks of Beethoven’s hair examined by Beggs et al. (2), including the Bermann and the Halm-Thayer Locks used in the current study, shared identical mitochondrial genomes of haplogroup H1b1 + 16,362C with a private mutation at C16,176T and had male XY karyotypes, demonstrating that the samples either came from a single individual or monozygotic twins. All 5 matching samples showed DNA damage that is consistent with an origin in the early 19th century. Furthermore, the Halm-Thayer Lock is one of the only 2 with an intact chain of custody; Beethoven hand-delivered the lock himself to the pianist Anton Halm in April 1826 (3). Therefore, it was concluded that these findings presented compelling evidence for the identity of the 5 independent locks of hair. Although the analysis revealed several significant genetic risk factors for liver disease and evidence of an infection with hepatitis B virus that may have contributed to his death, it did not shed light on the definitive causes of his deafness and gastrointestinal problems.

Arsenic, mercury, and lead in the locks were analyzed using a clinically validated method in accordance with Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines on a NexION 350 inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer in kinetic energy discrimination mode and confirmed on an Agilent 8900 triple quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. To minimize external contamination of lead from the environment or dyes, the locks of hair (0.01 g) were first washed with detergent, dried, and weighed. Patient hair samples, hair quality control, and National Institute of Standards and Technology standard reference material were then digested in nitric acid and analyzed neat and with dilutions (×3 or ×4 in duplicate) on both inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods.

Our findings confirm the presence of high hair lead concentrations in both the Bermann Lock (method 1, 258 µg/g; method 2, 254 µg/g) and the Halm-Thayer Lock (method 1, 380 µg/g; method 2, 369 µg/g), approximately 64- and 95- fold higher than the upper limit of the reference interval (<4 µg/g), respectively. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proposed conversion formula of values from hair lead concentration to blood lead concentration (4), the estimate of Beethoven’s blood lead concentration would have been 69 to 71 µg/dL. Such lead levels are commonly associated with gastrointestinal and renal ailments and decreased hearing but are not considered high enough to be the sole cause of death. Suggested primary sources of lead exposure include plumbed wine, dietary factors, and medical treatments (5). Worth noting is that we also observed increased levels of arsenic and mercury in both locks of hair by approximately 13- and 4-fold compared to the reference intervals (<1 µg/g), respectively.