is is well known, but in Beethoven's case some other cause for
the disease must be found. He was in the habit of taking wine with his
meals, a practice so common in Vienna at that time that not to have done
so would have been regarded as an eccentricity, but he never indulged in
it to excess, except possibly on a few occasions when in the company of
Holz. It can hardly be brought about by the use of wines, but is
produced by the inordinate use of spirituous liquors, something for
which Beethoven did not care. Cirrhosis was probably the cause of his
father's death, as he was a confirmed inebriate; but this cannot be
connected with the cirrhosis of the son; the disease is not
transmissible.

Beethoven's deafness probably began with a "cold in the head" which was
neglected. The inflammatory process then extended to the Eustachian
tubes. When it reached this point it was considered out of the reach of
treatment in his time, and for long after. Even in our own time, in the
light of advanced medical science, such a condition is serious and is
not always amenable to treatment, some impairment of the hearing
frequently occurring even with the best of care and under conditions
precluding the thought of a congenital tendency. The difficulty as
revealed by the post-mortem, lay in a thickening of the membrane of the
Eustachian tubes. The office of these tubes is to supply air to the
cavity on the inner side of the drum-membrane, known as the middle ear.
As is well known, a passage exists from the outer ear to the drum. The
Eustachian tubes connect the middle ear with the upper portion of the
throat from whence the air supply to the middle ear is obtained. We
cannot imagine a drum to be such unless there is air on both sides of
the membrane. Exhaust the air of an ordinary drum, and its resonance
would be gone. A similar condition obtained with Beethoven. With the
closure of the Eustachian tubes the air supply to the middle ear was cut
off; the air in the cavity finally became absorbed, and a retraction and
thickening of the drum-membrane with consequent inability to transmit
sound vibrations followed.

The hypothesis of heredity, sometimes brought forward to account for
his deafness, would have more weight had the lesion shown itself in the
case of either of his other brothers. As it is, there is no hint to be
found of even a tendency to deafness in any other of the Beethovens,
whether Johann, Karl, or the nephew. In any event a co