In the book Diagnosing the Life & Death of Beethoven Genius by Francois Martin Mai, he writes about Beethoven's medical problems. This book interested me because I am studying to enter the medical field and thought it would be especially exquisite to write about and learn about Beethoven's medical history and how he was still able to compose music. Mai writes that Beethoven suffered from becoming deaf, from gastrointestinal and psychiatric, respiratory, rheumatological and ophthalmological symptoms (103). Now let's explain some of these bigger and more unknown words that Mai says she has. Gastrointestinal means you have had stomach and/or intestinal problems. The psychiatric symptoms mean he had some sort of mental illness. Respiratory means he was having trouble breathing or there was something wrong with his lungs. Rheumatology is usually an autoimmune inflammatory disease. Finally, the ophthalmological symptoms indicate that there was something wrong with his eyes. Mai found all these symptoms "from her own letters, from letters written by others, from conversation books, from reports (including an autopsy report) written by her doctors, and from a modern toxicological analysis of her hair" (103) . Mai found out in his letters that during the winter months he was very ill and had minimal chances of getting better, but in the summer months he was sicker.