                       Beethoven
    
    The director of the Beethoven Project is William Walsh. He is the chief scientist of the Health Research Institute in Naperville, Illinois. He says the lead finding was a surprise. He also says he does not think lead caused Beethoven's other major health problem -- deafness.   
    Beethoven began to lose the ability to hear at the age of thirty-one. Ten years later, he was almost completely deaf. Mister Walsh says lead poisoning rarely causes deafness. But he says scientists will continue to study the possibility. 
    Mister Walsh also says his researchers are not trying to learn how Beethoven became poisoned by lead. He says historians can research that.  
    Lead was produced in great amounts in Europe during Beethoven's lifetime. Historians say Beethoven visited health centers called spas. At the spas, he drank and swam in mineral water that could have contained lead. Mister Walsh says the lead also may have come from the wine that Beethoven drank. Experts say lead has been found in the wine containers that Beethoven used. 
