Fragments of a cranium believed to have been that of composer Ludwig van Beethoven have been donated to a college in Austria after spending many years within the United States.
The items of bone have been donated to the Medical University of Vienna by American businessman Paul Kaufmann, who found them in a security deposit field in a French financial institution following his mom’s loss of life in 1990.
It later emerged that the bones, which have been contained in a tin faintly engraved with the phrase “Beethoven,” had been acquired from the property of his mom’s great-uncle, Franz Romeo Seligmann.
Seligmann, who died in 1892, had been a doctor, medical historian and anthropologist in Vienna. The cranium items, now known as the Seligmann fragments, got here into his possession in 1863 throughout a reburial of Beethoven’s bones for research functions.
Over the course of his 56 years, Beethoven famously suffered from progressive listening to loss, in addition to gastrointestinal issues and liver illness.
In 1802, 25 years earlier than his loss of life, Beethoven wrote a letter to his brothers, asking that his physician, Johann Adam Schmidt, decide and share the character of his “illness” after his loss of life. This letter is called the Heiligenstadt Testament.
In a phone interview with CNN, Kaufmann, a retired businessman from Carmichael, California, mentioned the shock discovery happened when his mom died immediately whereas visiting her brother in France.
He mentioned: “In her purse was a key to a safety deposit box in a local bank. When my wife and I opened it, among other things we found a little tin container and on the surface was inscribed ‘Beethoven.'”
Years of analysis and investigations, coupled with particulars from letters and paperwork that Kaufmann unearthed, have since revealed the fragments have been acquired by Seligmann in 1863, when Beethoven’s physique was exhumed. He is buried in Vienna’s Central Cemetery.
“My great uncle was a medical history professor and he had expertise in skulls and anthropology because he collected skulls,” mentioned Kaufmann.
The 5 hair samples helped scientists get hold of insights into Beethoven’s household historical past, power well being issues and what might need contributed to his loss of life on the age of 56.
In the times previous to the handover ceremony in Vienna, Kaufmann traveled to Germany to fulfill the specialists behind the hair discovery on the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
Kaufmann defined that the staff there have now taken DNA samples from the bones, which can take a number of months to investigate, earlier than they’ll conclusively hyperlink them to the hair samples.
CNN has contacted the institute for remark.
He added: “It is extremely emotional to me to return the fragments where they belong, back to where Beethoven is buried.”
Thanking Kaufmann for the donation, the rector of the college, Markus Müller, defined the museum’s particular significance within the Beethoven story.
He added: “The Josephinum is also the appropriate place for the acquisition of the fragments, since Beethoven’s physician, Johann Adam Schmidt, was also a professor at the Josephinum and Beethoven himself, during his lifetime, wished that his illness be studied and researched after his death.”
Christian Reiter, a Vienna-based forensic pathologist, has beforehand examined the cranium fragments and deemed them to be credible. The press launch quoted him as saying: “With further investigations, for example based on DNA, we will get closer to the question of whether it really is Ludwig van Beethoven. In any case, we are very grateful to Mr. Kaufmann for bringing these witnesses of the past back to Vienna.”
Since his loss of life, questions have swirled round what precisely ailed Beethoven and the true explanation for his loss of life. During the final seven years of his life, the composer skilled not less than two assaults of jaundice, which is related to liver illness, resulting in the overall perception that he died from cirrhosis.
Medical biographers have since combed by means of Beethoven’s letters and diaries, in addition to his post-mortem, notes from his physicians, and even notes taken when his physique was exhumed twice – in 1863 and 1888 – with the hopes of piecing collectively his difficult medical historical past.
Source: www.9news.com.au
