MEDICINE OF HISTORY Did Beethoven Have Pagefs Disease of Bone?

A new speculative viewpoint—Paget's disease of bone —is advanced here to explain the deafness of Ludwig von Beethoven. This hypothesis takes into consideration the unusual physical characteristics of the skull, face, jaw, and body of the composer, heretofore ignored in most discussions on the subject of Beethoven's deafness. THE UNUSUAL physical characteristics of Ludwig von Beethoven have not been taken into considera-tion in theories that have been postulated to explain his deafness. Most authors have limited themselves to a study of his ears and aural symptoms and have failed to take a broader view of Beethoven's phy-sique. Hence opportunities for comprehensive clin-icopathologic correlations have been missed, and conflicting reports have resulted. These theories in-clude proposed diagnoses of otosclerosis, nerve deaf-ness of diverse etiology, syphilis, and labyrinthitis (1-17). It is our purpose to present a new specula-tive diagnostic viewpoint, Paget's disease of bone, that takes into consideration these physical features of the composer