Seattle researcher:
Pork may have killed Mozart

by The Associated Press
as it appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 June 2001.

What killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at age 35? A Seattle researcher believes the answer is pork cutlets.

In a report published in today's Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Jan Hirschmann of the Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Medical Center theorizes that Mozart died of trichinosis, a worm infestation usually caused by eating undercooked pork.

Hirschmann offers as evidence a letter Mozart wrote to his wife 44 days before his illness began: "What do I smell? ... Pork cutlets!" Trichinosis, which has a 50-day incubation period, could explain his symptoms, including fever and rash, Hirschmann wrote.



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