The baton used by seventeenth-century conductors was much longer and heavier than the tiny instruments employed today. On January 8, 1687, in the course of conducting a Te Deum, Jean-Baptiste Lully accidentally struck his foot with his baton. So severe was the resulting injury that, despite progressive amputations, gangrene set in and ten weeks later Lully was dead.
[Irony alert: A Te Deum, atheists may be delighted to learn, is a hymn of praise to God (sung as part of a liturgy).]
Sources
Encyclopedia Britannica; J. Hawkins, General History of the Science and Practice of Music
