Posted on 12/07/2005 4:05:48 PM PST by neverdem
Is it time for you to take your medication? Go ahead, we will wait.
Thank you also.
I certainly made a blunder.
Dude, you really need a to take your medication.
But what caused the lead poisoning remains a mystery.The most likely explanation I've heard is that he did not suffer from greater exposure to lead than others of his day. It's that his body was unable to tolerate and process it, leading him to suffer it where others, similarly exposed, did not.
I would imagine that most people of reasonable means had similar lead levels in those days. Pewter cups, fine well decorated homes, rudimentary plumbing, etc. All of meant exposure to lead.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
> Thank you also.
No, thank you :)
Beethoven found out he was going deaf in 1798, and in 1801 wrote a suicidal letter to his brothers. And then he went on with life and his career and was extremely popular till 1815 when he began to be eclipsed by Rossini. Towards the end of his life he made a comeback with the Choral Symphony, and the story of how he had to be turned around to see the applause always brings tears to my eyes. Sure LVB was eccentric. He was always in love, needed a wife's care, but never married. Who knows what killed him. Bethoven remained brilliantly productive for 27 years when most people would quit. What an inspiration...and then there's the music.
Interesting take on the Heiligenstadt testament in the Solomon biography, have you looked at it? Also, I never got the impression he was eclipsed by Rossini, in estimation as an artist. His injunction to Rossini to "stick with the buffa" was well known. Around that time, though, he went through his "dry period" of several years where he wrote nothing but schlock. When he came out of it in his late years, I don't think he was even trying for popularity, but something else.
Just thoughts.
I think it may have been in his genes.
For all we know most of what we read about him today could have come from the Vienna National Enquirer of yesteryear.
> Also, I never got the impression he was eclipsed by Rossini, in estimation as an artist.
In popularity I meant--or so I've read. Rossini was quite new, and sounds so. Thanks for recommending the Solomon biography.
> Around that time, though, he went through his "dry period" of several years where he wrote nothing but schlock.
Kind of up and down I guess. Battle Symphony (Op. 91 1813), yes schlock. But the 7th Symphony (Op. 92, same year) pure magic. But till 1818 for Hammerklavier and the 20s gave Missa Solemnis the great final years.
I wonder what the genotype distribution was in Europe in Beethoven's time and did it have a causal effect an human behavior in the past in a similar proportions? Or at all?
I guess I'm wondering that even though we know lead "poisoning" occurred in the past, was it a big deal? Or is it currently being elevated to an importance in the past like global warming is today? Basically a lot of hype.
He irritated many, many landlords in the city of Vienna. I know this, because I visited several of his apartments from whence he was kicked out for doing things like pouring water over his head to keep himself awake. Of course the water dripped down through the floor of his apartment to the space of the tenant(s) below him (the cheaper apts. in those pre-elevator days were always upstairs...).
LOL!
Really!
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