Conductors have used batons for centuries, but prior to the nineteenth century, it was also common for choir directors and conductors to beat the time by banging a long staff on the floor.

On January 8, 1687, Louis XIV’s royal composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was conducting a celebratory piece to celebrate the king’s recovery from surgery (I am sure you can’t wait to click through to my account of his anal fistula operation here). Lully banged himself in the foot with his baton, which created an abscess and got infected. Lully refused to have his toe amputated and the wound turned gangrenous. He died several weeks later.