Beethoven's Ears

MY hearing grows worse and worse," Beethoven wrote in 1801. "A medical ass prescribed tea for my ear." Ever since his death in 1827, scholars have speculated that poor circulation, syphilis or typhoid fever might have been the cause. Not so, say Drs. Kenneth M. Stevens and William G. Hemenway of the University of Colorado Medical Center in the A.M.A. Journal. Beethoven's deafness was probably caused by cochlear otosclerosis, which today might be corrected by surgery. In this disorder, bony overgrowths within the inner ear cavity interfere with the transformation of vibrations into nerve impulses, and thus prevent their translation into sounds.

Beethoven was 27 when he first noticed loss of hearing for high tones. This is too young either for circulatory disease or for late syphilitic damage. Typhoid is more plausible. Without examining the composer's temporal bones, no one can be certain. When his skull was exhumed in 1863 and 1888, those bones were missing. Evidently they were saved at the time of the original autopsy. Stevens and Hemenway conclude that "perhaps in a forgotten cellar in Vienna, a small formalin-filled jar holds the answer."

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