ARTICLE - What really killed Mozart? Maybe strep

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What Really Killed Mozart? Maybe Strep

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By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: August 17, 2009

Scandalous rumors about popular musicians were just as lurid in the

18th century as they are today, but they moved at a more deliberate

pace. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791, and it took a

whole week for a Berlin newspaper to announce that he had been

poisoned. The actual cause of death, a new study suggests, may have

been more pedestrian: a strep infection.

Mozart had returned to Vienna from a trip to Prague in September,

completed the score of “The Magic Flute,” conducted its premiere,

visited Baden, Germany, where his wife was taking the waters, and

started writing the Requiem. He was evidently active and in good

health. Then on Nov. 22, two days after his last public performance,

he fell ill.

Poisoning was only the first of many theories about what could have

killed the 35-year-old composer at the height of his powers. Although

several people witnessed his death, most recorded their recollections

many years later. His sister-in-law recalled that Mozart’s body was

very swollen, so much so that he was unable to turn in bed, and that

he had a high fever, for which the attending physician ordered cold

compresses. He lost consciousness and died early on Dec. 5. The cause

of death was recorded as “fever and rash,” which even in the 18th

century were considered symptoms, not a disease.

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Read the whole article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/18mozart.html

Not an MD