Laurence Sherwood <[log in to unmask]> asked:

>Does that mean that experts doubt that he had syphilis, or that his
>syphilis was not the cause of his deafness?

They doubt the syphilis. The question for Beethoven's syphilis has been
a very hot topic of discussion for more than a century.  Tens and tens of
medical experts joined the debate and Thayer himself is the culprit, for
he wrote some interesting lines about some prescriptions, done by one of
Beethoven's many doctors (Bertolini).  He had visited the very old doctor
and he had seen those pieces of paper.  Reading Thayer's letter one gets
the impression that he obviously had come to the conclusion that Beethoven
had suffered from syphilis.  However, he was not a medical expert and to
this day nobody has stumbled on those mysterious prescriptions.  In the
fifties of 20th century the syphilis debate finally faded away after
a publication in a medical journal that can be seen as an impressive
refutation of the hypothesis.  Nevertheless biographer Marek still
mentioned it in his interesting and well-written, but not always reliable
biography of 1969.  Then came Solomon and correctly he wrote that syphilis
is not very likely, but that there's something to say for the assumption
that Beethoven at least once in his life had suffered from a "minor"
(Solomon's word) venereal disease.  What did he mean? Gonorrhoea? It's a
fact that in Beethoven's days a differential diagnosis for these diseases
was not yet available.  So many a poor guy was treated for syphilis, while
he was "only" suffering from gonorrhoea or another less dangerous venereal
disease.  Maybe Bertolini simply had erred.  And in this way the story
entered the world that Beethoven had suffered from syphilis.  Last year
we finally were informed about the research (started in about 1996) of
a lock of Beethoven's hair, cut from his head after his death.  Some of
the results: a hell of a lot of lead, hardly arsenicum (the poisoning
hypothesis!), no mercury.  No mercury is, of course, very important when
it comes to a discussion about Beethoven and syphilis.  Most experts now
reject the hypothesis completely.  Most......  In the last issue of the
Beethoven Journal (winter 2000) one can read an attempt by the editor
himself, William Meredith, to refute a recent publication in a medical
journal (sorry, I don't recall the name, nor the name of the author) in
which a medical expert argues that to his opinion syphilis is a likely
hypothesis for Beethoven, for his liver cirrhosis and his deafness as well.
Frankly, I don't believe a word of it, not because of the lack of mercury
(this only proves that Beethoven hadn't used mercury in the months
preceding to his death), but because of the lack of symptoms.  Probably
Solomon is right.  Beethoven's diary of 1814 shows that he was very ill at
the time and that he was afraid that he would die.  He even penned down the
name of a medicine, but later on (?) he crossed it out.  And in the period
1814/15 Bertolini was his doctor.

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