Did pork cutlets kill Mozart?

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The premature death at age 35 of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who by one account was poisoned by envious rival Antonio Salieri, might have been a simple case of the genius eating a meal of bad pork cutlets.

University of Washington researcher Jan Hirschmann, writing in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine (news - web sites), suggested Mozart's reported symptoms, including fever and swollen limbs, fit those for trichinosis, a parasitic worm that invades the body's tissues through infected meat.

And Mozart in a letter written to his wife Constanze two months before his death on Dec. 5, 1791, enthusiastically anticipated a meal of pork cutlets, Hirschmann wrote.

``What do I smell? ... Pork cutlets! Che gusto. I eat to your health,'' said his letter of Oct. 7.

Trichinosis was not even recognized until some 50 years later, Hirschmann said, and Mozart's treatment by two of the best doctors in Vienna was also less than ideal: bloodletting and cold compresses to quell his fever.

Hirschmann dissected previous theories about various illnesses or conspiracies thought to be behind the composer's untimely death in the report published Tuesday.

He offered evidence undermining the widely-known theory that court composer Salieri made a death bed confession that he poisoned his more-talented rival out of envy. Salieri told a pupil of his that the rumor he poisoned Mozart was ``absurd.''

Hirschmann also discounted the possibility that Mozart accidentally overdosed on mercury often used to treat syphilis, because his symptoms did not fit.

Hirschmann also unmasks the anonymous patron who commissioned Mozart's last work, ``Requiem,'' who was supposedly sent by Salieri or some other villain to push him to exhaustion. The patron was Count Franz von Walsegg-Stuppach, an amateur composer who wanted to take credit for the work as a tribute to his deceased wife.

In any case, any theory about the cause of Mozart's death will almost certainly never be confirmed, Hirschmann wrote. Mozart's grave was dug up to make room for another corpse as was the custom at the time and his remains were scattered.

-- (news@to.me), June 13, 2001

Answers

Pauper's graves indeed get tossed and that might rob us of an answer here. Still, this hypothesis (revealed first in Science News) looks pretty good.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), June 14, 2001.

Cherri the flying pig sat on Mozart. Poor guy didnt stand a chance.

Cherri your a fat fucking sow slag. Go away whore

-- Nope (nope@yo.com), June 14, 2001.