Doctor Killed Beethoven With Lead Poisoning

Larry Buckfire

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"His death was due to the treatments by Dr. Wawruch," said Reiter, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Vienna's Medical University. "Although you cannot blame Dr. Wawruch -- how was he to know that Beethoven already had a serious liver ailment?"

A Viennese pathologist believes that Beethoven was inadvertently killed by his doctor and the cause of death was lead poisoning. Other scientitists and researchers are not supportive of this opinion. Researchers have previously believed that Beethoven died from lead poisoning at age 57 based upon toxic levels of lead found in his hair and bone fragments.

Viennese forensic expert Christian Reiter claims to know more after applying CSI-like methods to strands of Beethoven's hair. He believes that the composer's physician used treatment containing lead on his patient and this contributed to his death, along with his failing liver. This would of course make a very interesting CSI medical malpractice case for providing treatment that contributed to the death of his patient.

For more information on this subject matter, please refer to our section on Wrongful Death.