Yesterday I sent a short list of names of those who speculated about the
cause of Beethoven's deafness, but I forgot Larkin's digressions on the
possible diagnosis SLE, that could have caused the deafness and the bowel
problems and liver cirrhosis as well.  He published about in 1970.  Also
interesting is the publication by Kubba and Young in The Lancet (1996).
Their conclusion is that a diagnosis is not possible, because we don't have
enough data.  Their choice for the bowel problems and liver cirrhosis is
Crohn's disease.  Their choice for the deafness is mixed sensorineural
and conductive.  Other recent attempts to throw some light on Beethoven's
mysterious chronic illnesses (the bowel problems and the deafness, both
already present when he was still in his twenties) are Sharma's choice for
Whipple's disease (1994) and Palferman's choice for sarcoidosis (1990).

Joyce Maier (mail to: [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask])
www.ademu.com/Beethoven