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Beethoven: Reconciled To The World Through A Lock Of His Hair - UPDATE

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Author Topic: Beethoven: Reconciled To The World Through A Lock Of His Hair - UPDATE  (Read 140 times)
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Bianca
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« on: March 06, 2009, 07:39:20 pm »









The half life of lead in the human body is about 22 years, with 95 percent of “old” lead residing in the skeletal structure. Beethoven experienced a change of personality and abdominal illness in his late teens and early 20s that persisted throughout his adult life. His abdominal symptoms and autopsy findings are both consistent with lead poisoning, Walsh said.

There have been documented cases of deafness resulting from lead poisoning, but this has been a relatively rare occurrence. There is no solid evidence that lead poisoning was a cause of Beethoven's deafness, Walsh said.

"Beethoven saw physician after physician in search of a cure for his physical ailments," said Walsh. In fact, in a letter to a friend, he expressed the wish that after his death, researchers would use his remains to help determine the cause of his illness so that others would not have to suffer as he did. "Beethoven suffered from bad digestion, chronic abdominal pain, irritability and depression. Since he died in 1827 at age 57, there has been much speculation but no proof of the cause of his illnesses and death."

Researchers performed the elemental X-ray fluorescence analysis at an Advanced Photon Source X-ray Operations and Research beamline.

"The APS is the only machine in the country where we can perform the research in this detail," said Ken Kemner, one of the Argonne researchers involved in the project. The group used microimaging to look at the distribution of lead in and on both the bone fragment and the hair to identify the presence of any surface effects and to determine the timeline of the lead exposure.

Argonne's Advanced Photon Source is a premier national research facility providing X-rays to more than 5,000 scientists from around the world. “Our users bring with them ideas for new discoveries in nearly every scientific discipline,” said Murray Gibson, Argonne associate laboratory director for scientific user facilities. “They bring their ideas to the APS because our X-ray beams let them collect data in unprecedented detail and in amazingly short time frames.”

Other members of the research team are Derrick Mancini and Francesco DeCarlo of the Advanced Photon Source Experimental Facilities Division.

The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future. Argonne is managed by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.


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Adapted from materials provided by Argonne National Laboratory.
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 MLA Argonne National Laboratory (2005, December Cool. Argonne Researchers Confirm Lead In Beethoven's Illness. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 6, 2009, from



http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2005/12/051207211035.htm
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