So Mozart wasn't poisoned after all? Some fascinating medical speculation came to light this week concerning Mozart's death in 1791. Medical researchers combed through some epidemiological records of the period and connected the date with some eyewitness accounts of Mozart's final days.
From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
Mozart’s sister-in-law, the authors note, said that his body became
so swollen during his fatal illness that he could not turn in bed. His
cause of death in a Viennese death registry was “hitziges
Frieselfieber,” or fever and rash. But all of these things — swelling, fever, rash — are symptoms that
don’t tell us what the underlying disease was. Speculation since the
time of Mozart’s death has ranged from poisoning, to syphilis, to
trichinosis from eating undercooked pork chops.
The authors of the Annals paper try a new tack: They look for
community-wide outbreaks of disease, and see how those might fit with
the great man’s death.
A contemporary physician said that Mozart got sick with a fever in
the fall of that year, and added that the fever “at that season was so
prevalent that few persons entirely escaped its influence.” And the
Viennese register of deaths shows that the number of deaths in young
men with edema was much higher at the end of 1791 than it was a year
earlier or a year later.Based on these pieces of evidence (and other details described at
length in the paper,) the authors suggest that Mozart may have had a
simple strep infection, which in turn caused a disorder called glomerulonephritis, which can destroy the kidneys — a fatal complication at that time.
But it must have been widely known that Mozart was prone to fevers. I consulted my very favorite Novelle in the German language – Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag ("Mozart on His Journey to Prague") – which Eduard Mörike wrote on for the centennial of Mozart's birth in 1856. The entire novella can be read online – German / English. At one point in the story Mozart's wife Constanze speaks about her concern for husband's health:
Vorletzten Winter wollte mir Mozarts Gesundheitszustand, durch
vermehrte Reizbarkeit und häufige Verstimmung, ein fieberhaftes Wesen,
nachgerade bange machen. In Gesellschaft noch zuweilen lustig, oft mehr
als recht natürlich, war er zu Haus meist trüb in sich hinein, seufzte
und klagte. Der Arzt empfahl ihm Diät, Pyrmonter und Bewegung außerhalb
der Stadt. Der Patient gab nicht viel auf den guten Rat; die Kur war
unbequem, zeitraubend, seinem Taglauf schnurstracks entgegen. Nun
machte ihm der Doktor die Hölle etwas heiß, er mußte eine lange
Vorlesung anhören von der Beschaffenheit des menschlichen Geblüts, von
denen Kügelgens darin, vom Atemholen und vom Phlogiston – halt
unerhörte Dinge; auch wie es eigentlich gemeint sei von der Natur mit
Essen, Trinken und Verdauen, das eine Sache ist, worüber Mozart bis
dahin ganz ebenso unschuldig dachte wie sein Junge von fünf Jahren.
anxious about the state of Mozart's health; he was very irritable and
feverish. While still very gregarious in company, often even more than would
have been natural, he was very miserable at home, always complaining, and
almost a recluse. The doctor recommended a diet, Pyrmont mineral water, and
walks in fresh air outside of the city. The patient did not adhere to this
well-meant regimen; the treatment was uncomfortable, time-consuming, and
totally contrary to his daily habits. Seeing this, the doctor admonished him,
and he had to listen to a long sermon on the nature of the human body and its
blood circulation, on the blood particles, on proper breathing, and on
Phlogiston(19)– -all very
extraordinary concepts; also on how nature had intended that we eat, drink and
digest, a matter that Mozart had, so far, given about as much thought to as a
five-year old little boy.)
How did Mörike know about Mozart's fevers? And were these somehow connected to the "hitziges
Frieselfieber" that finally killed him? But readers of Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag know the real cause of Mozart's premature death, as the character Eugenie realizes after she hears the final chords of Don Giovanni:
unaufhaltsam in seiner eigenen Glut verzehre, daß er nur eine flüchtige
Erscheinung auf der Erde sein könne, weil sie den Überfluß, den er
verströmen würde, in Wahrheit nicht ertrüge. (She was very certain,
so very certain, that this man would, ever faster, be consumed by his own
fire, that he would only be a passing mirage on earth, since the world could,
in reality, not bear the abundance that he created.)
