Celebrity Death Finally Solved -- With Locks of Hair

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

I'm going to open this week with a case.

A 56-year-old musician presents with diffuse abdominal pain, cramping, and jaundice. His medical history is notable for years of diffuse abdominal complaints, characterized by disabling bouts of diarrhea.

In addition to the jaundice, this acute illness was accompanied by fever as well as diffuse edema and ascites. The patient underwent several abdominal paracenteses to drain excess fluid. One consulting physician administered alcohol to relieve pain, to little avail.

The patient succumbed to his illness. An autopsy showed diffuse liver injury, as well as papillary necrosis of the kidneys. Notably, the nerves of his auditory canal were noted to be thickened, along with the bony part of the skull, consistent with Paget disease of the bone and explaining, potentially, why the talented musician had gone deaf at such a young age.

An interesting note on social history: The patient had apparently developed some feelings for the niece of that doctor who prescribed alcohol. Her name was Therese, perhaps mistranscribed as Elise, and it seems that he may have written this song for her.

This week, we unravel the curious case of Ludwig van Beethoven, thanks to modern DNA extraction techniques, genome-wide association studies, and eight locks of hair.