Russell Martin discusses the forensic testing of Beethoven's Hair

Beethoven's Hair discusses in detail the four scientific tests that have been performed to date on the storied lock of the composer's hair. The first was conducted by Dr. Werner Baumgartner at Psychemedics Corporation, Los Angeles in May 1996. His radio-immuno assay involved examination of twenty hairs to determine whether Beethoven received any opiate pain medication during the last months of his life. A negative result was obtained, and Baumgartner concluded that the composer did not receive morphine, laudanum, or other opiates in the final months of his life. Because Beethoven received care from Vienna's foremost physicians, it seems very likely that pain-relieving medication would have been offered to him, and that he declined it in order to be able to continue to sketch music, something he did until his final days.

The second test was performed in the fall of 1988 by Walter McCrone of Chicago's McCrone Research Institute. Using scanning electron microscope energy dispersion spectrometry, McCrone found lead levels in the Beethoven hairs he studied that were 42 times higher than three control samples taken from living human beings. This result strongly indicated that Beethoven suffered plumbism (lead poisoning) throughout much of his adult life, dramatic lead toxicity that likely caused his life-long illnesses, impacted his personality, and contributed to his death.

In September 2000, Argonne National Laboratory physicists Ken Kemner, Derrick Mancini and Francesco DeCarlo performed nondestructive synchrotron X-ray beam experiments involving side-by-side testing of six Beethoven hairs, a standard hair of known lead composition and a standard "lead glass" film also of known composition. The Argonne research team found elevated lead levels that averaged about 60 parts per million in the six Beethoven hairs they examined, confirming McCrone's earlier finding. Average Americans today have 0.6 parts per million of lead in their hair, about 100 times less than the Beethoven hairs.

Beethoven's lifelong illnesses-terrible abdominal cramping, rheumatic fevers, abscesses, gouts, diarrhea, eye pain, and even his deafness-may have been the result of the severe lead toxicity.

Undetectable mercury levels were reported separately by the McCrone Research Institute and Argonne National Laboratory. These results provide no evidence that Beethoven received medical treatment for syphilis, because in the 1820's the disease normally was treated with mercury compounds. This supports the consensus opinion of Beethoven scholars who believe that Beethoven did not contract or suffer from syphilis .