17 juni 2010

The Medical Histories of J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was renowned for his outstanding health – except for his eyes, which were a lifelong problem. When he grew older, his vision deteriorated and during the last year of his life, Bach was twice forced to undergo eye surgery. This was performed by John Taylor, a travelling ophthalmologist from England. Unfortunately, both operations failed and Bach, almost four months after the second operation, died in a complete state of blindness.
Bach was buried without any mark or registration in the books and the location of the grave was forgotten within several years of his death. Almost a century and a half later a professor of anatomy, Wilhelm His, conducted a search for the remains and, after some dubious investigations, concluded that the skeleton he found had once belonged to Bach. In 1949 these remains were once more examined, this time by the surgeon Wolfgang Rosenthal who appealed to a self-named malaise, Organistenkrankheit – skeletal deformations due to playing the church organ – as confirmation of His’ thesis. My own research, however, leads to the conclusion that in all likelihood this skeleton did not belong to Bach.

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756-1791) evidently had an excellent constitution as well. The serious diseases which afflicted him seemed infectious in origin and were mainly contracted during his extensive travels, especially in his childhood years. One of those that nearly proved fatal was probably typhoid fever, which he weathered in The Hague at the age of nine. As an adult, he appears not to have suffered from any life-threatening disease, with the exception of the illness in his final year.
Mozart’s left ear was known to have displayed a deviation, named “Mozart ear” after its bearer. In addition, Mozart has been credited with several psychiatric disorders. The alleged skull of Mozart, kept in the Mozarteum in Salzburg, therefore, could never have been his.
After an illness lasting two weeks, Mozart died on December 5 1791. Many causes of death have been advanced ever since. My own research clearly shows that around the time in question an epidemic spread through Vienna, particularly targeting those younger than 40. This is consistent with streptococcal infection – a disease that affected many Viennese inhabitants, but caused fatalities far less frequently and only as result of complication. Mozart, I believe, was of that unlucky few.

Additional medico-historical details concerning Mozart and Bach may be found on the website www.mozach.nl

Richard H.C. Zegers attended medical school at Maastricht University. During his medical training, he worked for several months in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret (Kenya). After graduating in 1997, he completed a one-year residency at the Department of Cardiopulmonary Surgery at St Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein. He started his training in Ophthalmology in 1999 at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. He became an ophthalmologist in 2003. After a one-month fellowship in cataract surgery at Isala Klinieken in Zwolle, and nine months of fellowship in glaucoma (surgery) at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital in Rotterdam, he became a staff member – specialization in glaucoma – at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. In October 2008 he successfully defended a PhD dissertation entitled The Eyes and Other Pathographical Aspects of J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart: A Medico-Historical Evaluation, supervisors: prof. Ton Koopman, and prof. Rokus de Groot. Since May 2009, in addition to his position in Amsterdam, he is also employed in the Diakonessenhuis in Zeist/Utrecht.