Hermann Kaulbach's 1872 oil painting "Mozart's last days," depicting the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Based on eyewitness accounts of the composer's final days, Mozart may have died from acute kidney failure brought on by a strep throat epidemic that appears to have arisen from a local military hospital.
PHILADELPHIA — What killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart so suddenly in 1791? Was the 35-year-old composer poisoned? Could it have been kidney failure? A parasite?
A report in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine, a medical journal published in Philadelphia, suggests it might have been something far more common: a strep infection.
Researchers looked at death records in Vienna in the months surrounding his death. The data suggests that there was a minor strep epidemic around that time, and some of Mozart's symptoms, including swelling and fever, could have come from strep.
A more than 200-year-old rumor suggests composer Antonio Salieri poisoned Mozart. The rumor has been widely discredited.
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