[How Johannes Brahms died]

In 1896, when he was 63 years old, Johannes Brahms, who had always been demonstrably in good health, developed an icterus of increasing intensity together with a considerable enlargement of the liver and loss of weight. Since infectious hepatitis could scarcely come into the question, from the medical point of view a neoplasm in the region of the liver as well as cirrhosis of the liver were considered. While hepatic carcinoma is a relatively rare disease in Europe even today and Brahms, on the other hand, had consumed copious quantities of concentrated alcoholic drinks during his lifetime, cirrhosis of the liver is the most probable diagnosis, especially as at the end hemorrhages from esophageal varices and the lower intestinal segments occurred.