Yesterday I sent a short list of names of those who speculated about the
cause of Beethoven's deafness, but I forgot a few.

1.  Larkin's choice for SLE, that could have caused the deafness and the
bowel problems and liver cirrhosis as well.  He published about in 1969/70,
firstly in a professional journal, later on in Martin Cooper's famous book
on Beethoven's last decade.

2.  The publication by Kubba and Young in The Lancet (1996).  Their choice
for the bowel problems and liver cirrhosis is Crohn's disease.  Their
choice for the deafness is mixed sensorineural and conductive
(otosclerosis).

3.  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