[Illness and death of the violin virtuoso Nicolò Paganini--interpretation based on new hair investigations].

The violin virtuoso Paganini died at Nice in 1840 after a long, severe illness. It is undisputed that Paganini was treated with mercury for suspected syphilis and lost all his teeth in 1828 because of that treatment. In the comprehensive literature published on this topic, most authors assume that the terminal complaints and his death were caused by tuberculosis. On the other hand, the hypothesis that he may have died from mercury poisoning was rejected, because there was no information available supporting this assumption. The authors performed morphological investigations using light microscopy and raster electron microscopy (REM). The examined hairs corresponded to a growth phase of > 1 year and Language: de