ベートーヴェンの病跡と芸術

The Pathography and Art of Beethoven

音楽家ベートーヴェンは20代半ばから難聴と腹痛を患ったが，神経症状と消化器疾患の両方を説明できる病因として鉛中毒が有力であり，低品質のワインを長期にわたり常飲することで，大量の鉛を摂取してしまった可能性がある。ベートーヴェンの聴覚情報処理障害は楽音や音声入力に対する低次ボトムアップ処理の障害にすぎず，聴覚的イメージの再現や作曲といった高次トップダウン処理にはおそらく影響を与えなかっただろう。

Abstract

The musician Ludwig van Beethoven suffered from hearing impairment and abdominal pain beginning in his mid-twenties. Lead intoxication can cause both of neural symptoms and digestive disorders. Lead was often present in poor-quality wines at that period, and thus Beethoven could have ingested a large amount of lead through daily wine consumption. His auditory processing disorder was merely a deficit in the lower level bottom-up processing of musical sounds or voice inputs, and probably did not affect higher level top-down processing, such as the representation of auditory imagery and composition.