American Entrepreneur Donates Beethoven Skull Fragments to Medical University of Vienna

The American Entrepreneur Paul Kaufmann just gave to the Medical University of Vienna what are believed to be 10 skull fragments from the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). “I am very excited to be able to return the Beethoven skull fragments that I inherited to where they belong and have them go back to where he is buried,” he said in a statement to the BBC.

Kaufmann said that found the fragments in 1990 inside a safe deposit box of a French bank after the death of his mother. The tin can, faintly engraved with Beethoven’s name, belonged to his great-grandunclethe Viennese physician and anthropologist Franz Romeo Seligmann (died 1892), who received the fragments in 1863 after Beethoven’s bones were exhumed for study.

Two of the 10 fragments, which have already been analyzed in the United States, are large and correspond to the back of the head and the right side of the forehead. In this sense, the Austrian coroner Christian Reiter assured that fragments are “really valuable material” and that they hoped to continue their research for years to come. “That was also Beethoven’s wish,” he added.

Deafness and major liver problems

In any case, Markus Muellerrector of the Viennese university, said that remains will be handled in an ethically responsible manner. “It’s about finding the right balance between the understandable public interest and respect for a deceased person,” she said.

Beethoven suffered from health problems for much of his life. and, according to the surviving reports, he explicitly requested that his doctor, Johann Adam Schmidt, study his body after his death, which occurred at the age of 56. In 1795 he began to lose hearingsomething that worsened after suffering from severe tinnitus, which made him stay completely deaf in 1818.

The remains were those of Franz Romeo Seligmann, who received the fragments in 1863 after Beethoven’s bones were exhumed.

Also, earlier this year, a report by scientists at the University of Cambridge and published in the journal Current Biology demonstrated the sequence of Beethoven’s genome using the study of five strands of her hair and revealed that the composer had a genetic predisposition to liver and gastrointestinal diseases. In fact, he suffered two bouts of jaundice and a hepatitis B infection months before his death.

The American Entrepreneur Paul Kaufmann just gave to the Medical University of Vienna what are believed to be 10 skull fragments from the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). “I am very excited to be able to return the Beethoven skull fragments that I inherited to where they belong and to have them go back to where he is buried,” he said in a statement to the BBC.