Beethoven—life and maladies

In 2020 we celebrated the 250th anniversary of the birthday of the great Ludwig van Beethoven. In honour of the great composer, a number of events popped up. But also, as part of the Beethoven year, we were all COVID-driven and had to overcome lockdowns and restrictions. Luckily, the Society of Physicians was able to present “Everything what medical professionals should know about Ludwig van Beethoven: Pathology—ENT—Science—Art”, which was moderated by Mrs. Dr. Angetter-Pfeiffer from the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities & Cultural Heritage (Austrian Academy of Science). Another celebration could also be held in the Pathological-Anatomical Collection of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Vienna: “Medical Humanities: Politzer 100—Beethoven 250—Raffael 500”, which was organised by Prof. H. Swoboda (Department of ENT, Vienna Hospital Hietzing). A lot of experts gave brilliant lectures about the life and diseases of Beethoven. The discussions were lively and interesting. At the end, all speakers were asked to submit their talks to the special issue of the WMW, which you can now find published here. …