Robert Peters <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>The radio program I listened to (and it is a very reputable station)
>quoted from a letter by Beethoven himself where he links his deafness
>to a venereal infection.  Either they or you are wrong.

Do you recall which letter they talked about? For to this very day I
haven't read a letter like this and believe me, I've read them all.  In not
ONE of his letters Beethoven ever mentioned a venereal disease connected to
his deafness.  So either the "reputable station" erred or they simply lied.
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest that they maybe quoted
those lines from the diary in which he writes about a mysterious medicine,
obviously connected to an also mysterious dangerous situation in his life.
Here are those lines.  Maybe they do ring a bell.  This is what he wrote:

"Zb.  Bestimmung der Aerzte uber mein Leben - - ist keine Rettung mehr -
so muss ich - - - - - - brauchen -??? Es gehort um noch geschwinder zu
vollenden was fruher unmoglich - - Consilium mit xxx - - -"

However, as you see, no connection to the deafness at all.  Since we
don't have the original diary anymore (there are two copies, the so-called
Fischer-Manuskript and the so-called Graffer-Kopie) we don't know how to
fill in those --- and xxx.  Did those who copied the diary leave out words
and/or names? Or Beethoven himself? We don't know.  A source of confusion
are, maybe, the letters he wrote to Zmeskall in which he mentioned "morsche
Festungen" who he obviously considered very dangerous.  Many biographers
believe that he pointed to ill prostitutes.  I tend to agree.  But all
those letters are a warning, because Zmeskall seemed to have been a
enthusiastic visitor of prostitutes.  Nowhere Beethoven writes about
himself and his deafness connected to these women.  Another source of
confusion is, maybe, the fact that Beethoven tried to find the cause of
his deafness and in various letters (and also the Heiligenstadt Testament)
he speculated that it had anything to do with his bowel problems.  But
nowhere he mentioned a venereal disease.

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