In 2000, a team of researchers analyzed the Hiller Lock for heavy metals and found lead concentrations far above normal background levels—levels that prompted the conclusion that Beethoven had been chronically exposed to lead, possibly at toxic quantities. The finding attracted considerable attention. Lead poisoning had been proposed as a contributing factor in several of Beethoven’s health problems, and a specific mechanism was available: wine, which Beethoven drank heavily, was in the early nineteenth century sometimes adulterated with lead acetate (also known as sugar of lead) to mask the wine’s acidity and add sweetness. The practice was illegal but documented, and it offered a plausible route of chronic exposure.
The 2000 study was not the only investigation of Beethoven and lead. A subsequent analysis published by the field toxicologist and forensic specialist Christian Reiter examined bone fragments from Beethoven’s skull that had been preserved as relics after the composer’s autopsy, and found extremely high lead levels that Reiter interpreted as evidence of chronic exposure. Reiter proposed a specific mechanism involving his physicians’ use of lead-containing medicines in his final illness.
These findings, taken together, generated a coherent if contested narrative: Beethoven had been exposed to high levels of lead over a long period, and this exposure—combined with his alcohol consumption and possibly other factors—had contributed to his chronic ill health and perhaps to his death.
The 2023 study showed that the Hiller Lock, which had been central to the 2000 lead analysis, was not Beethoven’s hair. Any lead measurements derived from that lock were measurements of an unknown woman’s hair, not the composer’s. The lead-poisoning hypothesis built on that data needed to be reconstructed from scratch using only authenticated materials.