The "Munich Beer Heart" (Münchner Bierherz)

The "Munich Beer Heart" is a historical medical term describing a pathological enlargement of the heart muscle — known today as cardiomyopathy — caused by extreme alcohol consumption in the late 19th century. The pathologist Otto von Bollinger coined the term after repeatedly observing fatal cardiac enlargements among brewery workers in Munich. He first documented the phenomenon in the 1880s at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich. The reason for these crazy hearts are workers who were consuming staggering volumes of liquid — sometimes up to 15 liters of beer per day — which, combined with the alcohol itself, caused severe heart damage and ultimately heart failure.