Lots of people know that lead poisoning played a role in the fall of the Roman Empire (lead pipes) but in December 2005 it was learned that Beethoven died of lead poisoning - probably from a combination of pipes, lead seals on wine and documents, crystal, ceramics and paints - they started outlawing lead in Europe at the end of the 19th Century... it took America nearly a century longer...

From "Online NewsHour": An expert in forensic analysis talks about the detective work that solved the mystery of Ludwig van Beethoven's death.

JEFFREY BROWN: What we've long known about Ludwig van Beethoven: He made incredible music and he suffered through illness for much of his adult life. What hasn't been known is the nature of his illness, and what eventually killed him in 1827.

Today, through an unusual x-ray experiment done at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory a team of scientists confirmed that Beethoven suffered from lead poisoning.

Here to tell us about it is the director of that project. William Walsh is an expert in forensic analysis and director of research at the Pfeiffer Treatment Center in Warrenville, Illinois.

And welcome to you. You used hair and bone samples, I understand, to do this work. How did they lead you to the findings about lead poisoning?

WILLIAM WALSH: Well, we had the major relics of Beethoven that still exist in the world, both the fragments his skull and hair samples. And we really didn't know what to expect going in.

But after we did very careful chemical analysis, we found that both samples which had come from different sources, they both were the only unusual thing was that they were both extraordinarily high in lead concentration.