May 20, 2013 Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine News & Features
Scandalous rumors about popular musicians were just as lurid in
the 18th century as they are today, but they moved at a more
deliberate pace. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791,
and it took a whole week for a Berlin newspaper to announce that
he had been poisoned. The actual cause of death, a new study
suggests, may have been more pedestrian: a strep infection.
Mozart had returned to Vienna from a trip to Prague in
September, completed the score of ''The Magic Flute,'' conducted
its premiere, visited Baden, Germany, where his wife was taking
the waters, and started writing the Requiem. He was evidently
active and in good health. Then on Nov. 22, two days after his
last public performance, he fell ill. All physicians and most
parents know the importance of recognizing and adequately
treating a throat infection caused by Group A streptococcal
bacteria. Scientists know so little about a disorder that links
a strep infection with obsessive-comp