New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-08-09
DAYS
OF BEETHOVEN

have had Professor Wawruch
called for you; Nivenot is himself
sick. | do not know Wawruch per-
sonally, but he is known here as one
of the most skilful physicians. lie is
Bogner's doctor. He is professor in
the hospital. He will come after dim
ner.
SEARCH FOR 4 PHYSICIAN.
Vivenot was a physician. In all prob
ability Beethoven had exhausted the
list Of physicians of his acquaintance
before Holz succeeded in securing the
attendance of Dir. Wawruch. Smetana,
the surgeon, may not have been con-
sidered. and Malfatti could not be at
the time for reasons which Beethoven
knew and was painfully made to feel
later when he was called in consulta-
ton. According to the accepted story
Braunhofer, who. had been the last
physician to treat Beethoven before
the misfortunes of the summer had
declined the call because OF the too
great distance between his house and
Beethoven's. and Staudenheimer, whom
Braunhofer had displaced, promised 10
come. but did not. He, perhaps both,
took part later in the consultations
Wawruch was an amateur violOncello
thoven's music. When he reaches his
august patient, though he permits Karl
TO write the questions which he asks
i'm making his diagnosis, he takes the
pencil himself to tell whom he is:
zone who greatly reveres your name
will do everything possible to give you
speedy relief.-Professor Wawruch."
In his history of the case DR.. Wawrucn
writes:
I found Beethoven afflicted with
serious symptoms of Inflammation
of the lungs. His face glowed, he
spst blood, his respiration threat
ened suffocation and a painful stitch
in his side made lying on the back
torment. A severe counter-treatment
for Inflammation soon brought the
desired relief; his nature triumphed
and By a lucky crisis he was freed
from apparent mortal danger, so
that on the fifth day he was able, IN
a sitting posture, to tell me, amid
profound emotion, of the discom-
forts which he had suffered. On the
seventh day he felt considerably bet
ter. so that he was able to get out
of bed, walk about, read and write.
DR.. Gerhard Won Breuning. who was
concerned in proving that DR.. Maw-
ruch was a bungling practitioner, pro-
tests that Beethoven was not suher-
ing from inflammation of the lungs
but from inflammation of the perltone-
UNI. which alone, he says, could have
brought on the dropsy of the belly
from which il has been thought, until
recently, Beethoven died. lie based
his opinion on the fact. which, though
he was only a boy of thirteen at the
time. he may have observed in the sick
room. that the patient did not cough,
had no difficulty in breathing, and that
afterward his lungs were found to be
sound. Wawruch, however, an expert
enced physician, is speaking OF what
he observed on his first visit, and IS
not likely to have erred in so obvious
a matter as incipient lobar pneumonia,
the general history of which, as now
understood, agrees with the recorded
account of Beethoven's case even IN
such details as the critical period
reached on the fifth day. The subse-
ouent strength of the lungs is not IN
consistent with the theory that IN the
first week Beethoven weathered an at
tack Of pneumonia.
BEGINNINGS OF THE MALADY.
There are few references to the state
Of Beethoven's health during the So
iourn at Gneixendorf, but that he was
i'll when he arrived there is indicated
by an early remark Of Johann's at
tributing an improvement in the con-
dition of his eyes to the good air
without rosewater." Johann wrote
later that when with him Beethoven
ate little. When the food was not
prepared to his taste he ate soft-boiled
eggs for dinner "and drank all the
more WINE He had frequent attacks
of diarrhea. His abdomen became
distended so that he wore a bandage
for comfort. Wawruch had no knowl-
edge of his patients previous medical
history, and was compelled to discover
for himself what his colleagues, to
whom the sick mans call was first ex-
tended, would have known from their
earlier experiences with him. Schind--
Ter attacks Wawruch on the ground
that he had said that Beethoven was
addicted to the use of spirituous
LIQUORS. The Conversation Books and
other testimony plentifully indicate