According to a recent article in an academic journal, researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The New York Times explores some of them.
From the piece...
With direct evidence lacking, researchers have had to rely mainly on accounts by Mozart’s widow, Constanze Mozart, and her sister, Sophie Haibel, given some decades later. Evidence also comes from an undated document by Mozart’s son Karl Thomas and from a description — again, decades later — by a Viennese doctor who spoke to the physicians who treated Mozart in his final days.
Scholars have also examined accounts of Mozart’s ailments in letters written by family members, especially his father, Leopold, to uncover signposts regarding his final sickness. Speculation about an abnormality in the shape of his ear has even led some to suggest that kidney failure was likely, since urinary tract deformities are sometimes related to ear abnormalities.
The indirect evidence itself rests on a quicksand of changing medical definitions, sometimes mistranslated phrases from original testimonies and leaps forward in the understanding of diseases and how the body works.
“As people read the symptoms and patterns of the disease as written by the contemporaneous authors,” Dr. Dawson said in a recent interview, “these physicians, in their own minds, try to put together, ‘What does this represent?’ ”
Here's the Bow Valley Chorus singing some of Mozart's "Requiem":
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