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Poland has rejected a request to carry out a DNA test on the heart of Frederic Chopin to determine whether the 19th century composer suffered from cystic fibrosis, a culture ministry spokesman said Monday.
"Currently there is no justification, or legal possibility to carry out such tests," spokesman Piotr Szymanski told AFP Monday.
The Polish-French pianist and composer died at the age of 39, of what is believed to be tuberculosis.
But believing his symptoms were more typical of cystic fibrosis, Polish medical experts requested permission to run DNA tests on his heart -- preserved in alcohol -- aimed at isolating the CFTR gene marking the disease.
"The refusal was preceded by broad consultations with specialists in genetics, the artistic and scientific community focused on the work and person of Frederic Chopin as well as the church," he said, adding that two of Chopin's living relatives disagreed over the testing request.
The prospect of picking over the heart of a national icon caused a lively debate in Poland.
The preserved relic is inside a crystal urn in Warsaw's Church of the Holy Cross.
It was brought to Chopin's native Warsaw in 1849, as per his dying wish, by his elder sister Ludwika from Paris, where his remains are buried at the Pere Lachaise cemetery.
Among scientists who requested DNA testing, leading Polish cystic fibrosis specialist Wojciech Cichy said symptoms Chopin suffered throughout his life were typical of cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness which clogs the lungs with excess thick and sticky mucus.
Records show that as an adult weighing 40 kilograms (about 88 pounds) at a height of 1.70 metres (five foot seven inches), Chopin was chronically underweight, a telltale symptom of the disease. Sufferers rarely live past 40.
According to Grzegorz Michalski, director of Poland's National Fryderyk Chopin Institute, the last known time that the heart was examined was in 1945, just after the end of World War II.
Records show it was "perfectly preserved" in a hermetically-sealed crystal urn filled with an alcoholic liquid, presumed by some to be cognac.
