Robert Peters wrote in response to my comment on a quotation where
Beethoven links his deafness to the condition of "mein Unterleib" (my
abdomen).

>>I already was afraid that this quotation is the so-called reference to
>>syphilis.  As if every complaint about a sick abdomen should point to
>>syphilis!  Giggle...
>
>To me the quotation sounded quite convincing.  Being a native German
>I instantly understood the phrase "mein Unterleib" to be a euphemism.
>Beethoven wouldn't have been too shy to write things like "mein Magen" if
>he really meant his abdomen.

No, that's an error.  In those days people were not as shy about physical
troubles as some people these days seem to be!:-) Over the years the
condition of his troublesome gut was often discussed by himself, his
friends (also females!) and his doctors and mostly very frankly indeed.
You should read the remarks in the conversation books.  Flabbergasting.
One remark after another about his many farths and his stinking not emptied
chamber pot.  Brother Johann discussing his diarrhoea.  Nephew Karl
discussing his constipation, et cetera, et cetera.  What Beethoven meant
was not his stomach, but his gut.  So why would he have written "Magen?"
THAT would have been a euphemism.  We know from the history of his
illnesses that troubles with the gut was his usual illness (started when he
was still in his teens!), not troubles with his stomach.  Without proofs
that he meant a venereal disease when he used this word "Unterleib" there's
no reason to assume he suffered from such a disease, at least not in 1801.
What happened in 1814 when he wrote down those mysterious lines in his
diary is another story.  To this day this is unexplained and it cannot be
excluded beyond doubt that this remark had something to do with a venereal
disease.  But in that case it must have been a recent infection and then
one thing is very sure:  it had nothing to do with his deafness.  By the
way, medically spoken it's very unlikely, maybe even impossible, that a
person infected with syphilis in his teens would stay as healthy as
Beethoven did until at least his 50s and yet would have suffered from
deafness caused by this syphilis.  Yet that would be the conclusion if
we assume that the letters of 1801 point to syphilis.  Beethoven himself
reminds one of the adressees of the fact that "already in Bonn" he had
suffered from a sick abdomen.

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