Beethoven hair experiment re-enacted for film

A camera crew visited the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory this spring to film the re-enactment of a highly publicized experiment from 2000, when researchers using the APS confirmed that composer Ludwig van Beethoven's years of chronic illness were due to lead poisoning. This toxin also may have contributed to the 19th-century composer's death.

The crew, from Rhombus Media in Toronto, is producing a "docudrama for the Canadian Broadcasting Company and for PBS.

Because the APS was shut down for routine maintenance, the filmmakers were able to access not only the Experiment Hall floor, but also the accelerator tunnels where the X-ray beam is produced.

In the experiment, the researchers found extraordinarily high levels of lead in strands of Beethoven's hair, according to Bill Walsh, chief scientist for the Health Research Institute in Naperville, Ill. a former Argonne scientist and principal investigator on the project.

The team performed nondestructive X-ray beam experiments that involved side-by-side testing of six of Beethoven's hairs, a standard hair of known lead concentration and a thin film of standard "lead glass with a known lead composition.

They found elevated lead levels that averaged about 60 parts per million (ppm) in the six Beethoven hairs. According to Walsh, average Americans today have 0.6 ppm of lead in their hair, about 100 times less than Beethoven.

The source of the composer's lead poisoning is unknown but could have been from drinking mineral water at spas, from dishes or wine stored in lead-lined flasks or from lead crystal.