In a time when men wore powdered wigs and their physical appearance was an indicator of status, Ludwig Von Beethoven was notorious for dressing unkempt and having a disheveled hairdo. Beethoven was often misunderstood by people he was in everyday contact with. As much as people did not understand Beethoven's fits of temper or willingness to exile himself, Beethoven did not understand the people around him due to his hearing impairment.Beethoven's hearing impairment was so bad that in the later stages of his life, he would have people write down what they wanted to say to him on paper. This is how historians found out so much about Beethoven's life...primary sources of conversation. The problem is that historians have to use the context of the conversation on paper to determine what Beethoven may have said, because despite his hearing, he could speak well.
After so many years being burdened by deafness, Beethoven wrote a document called the Heiligenstadt Testament that proclaimed to his brothers Carl and Johann how uneasy Beethoven felt with such a hearing condition. He told the brothers that after his death, they should recognize that it was not Beethoven's attitude and mindset that caused him to be misunderstood as much as it was his physical dilemma. He also offered his brothers to be heirs of his possessions.
When the famous composer passed away in 1847, people were eager to snip locks of Beethoven's untamed hair for keepsake. 
A young composer named Ferdinand Hiller snipped the lock shown here from Beethoven's head and put it in a locket. The locket was passed down to his son Paul and is thought to have made its way to America from Vienna by a Jewish family escaping the Holocaust.
A young composer named Ferdinand Hiller snipped the lock shown here from Beethoven's head and put it in a locket. The locket was passed down to his son Paul and is thought to have made its way to America from Vienna by a Jewish family escaping the Holocaust. In 1994, Sotheby's auction house sold the lock of hair for $7,300 in America. The owners wanted to establish a Beethoven Center at San Jose State University. They also wanted to do a DNA analysis of Beethoven's hair to learn key things about him. As it turns out, this is only known lock that still remains.
The result of the DNA analysis was that Beethoven's hair had traces of lead that were 100 times the amount that a normal person has. Beethoven had a form of lead poisoning known as "Plumbism" that surely contributed to his abdominal pain and depression. Symptoms of lead poisoning in general include hearing problems, kideny damage, irritability, headaches, and abdominal pain, all of which Beethoven experienced.