A couple of days ago, discussion at a Party veered around how Ludwig van Beethoven could write timeless and unique symphonies like my favourite No 9 and 5, when he was deaf. A brief research shifted my focus instead on how he turned deaf, had a host of ailments and suffered an early death. Nearly 200 years after his death and analyzing his locks of hair, scientists have apparently discovered dangerously high levels of lead in two locks. The German composer apparently loved sweetened cheap wine with a high level of lead that could have led him to his health problems.

Beethoven had begun losing his hearing in his 20s. He had a bad liver, suffered from diarrhea and cramps, and was completely deaf by the time he died at the age of 56 in 1827.

An international team of researchers extracted DNA from preserved locks of Beethoven’s hair and analyzed it. They found massive quantities of lead, along with arsenic and mercury. These findings have been published in the journal Clinical Chemistry.

According to The Print one lock had 258 micrograms of lead per gram of hair, and the other had 380 micrograms, hundreds of times more lead than what’s found in most humans. Such high levels of lead can be attributed to the composer drinking cheap, sweetened wine for which Beethoven had a penchant. The arsenic levels, too, were 13 times higher than normal, while the levels of mercury were four times more than the safe limit.

According to the New York Times “Now with thorough testing they say that he had enough lead in his system to, at the very least, explain his deafness and illnesses, says the Report in the Print.

With no food and wine safety standards and controls in the 19th century, lead was a significant ingredient in cheap wines added to alcohol to enrich its flavour. It could also be found in other foods, ointments, and medicines.

It might be relevant to point out that in the 1980s both Austria and Italy were hotbeds of spurious wines that killed many people who drank them (In particular, sweet wines from Austria might have used lead in the mixture), subsequent to which several strict laws were passed and enforced. It’s unlikely now to find cheap wines with additives like lead, arsenic and mercury of the level that could be harmful.

Subhash Arora

Although with the quality of standards being tightened even in India, thanks to FSSAI, it is safe to assume there is no lead added to the cheap wines today and they are relatively safe to drink, but the standards of hygiene for quality cannot be expected to be high. For these reasons, delWine always recommends to drink wine only in moderation, drink less but drink better quality, though no one has been known to have died of drinking cheap wine. But spurious wines or indeed any spurious alcohol is another story! Always buy from a known source. Generally, storage could be a problem to maintain quality but any lax standards would not make the wine fatal-editor