My Family Doctor
A family practitioner for over 25 years, Dr. Hubbard knows the medical world inside and out. Frustrated by managed care and the lack of time doctors were able to spend educating patients, he launched James Hubbard's My Family Doctor: The Magazine That Makes Housecalls, a national magazine written by health care practitioners that is his answer to hurried doctor visits, conflicting medical studies, and complicated treatment options.
George Washington’s Health and Death
When consensus science is wrong
George Washington was tough. Unbelievably tough. Everybody back then was, or they died. In his younger years, he had malaria, small pox, tuberculosis, and dysentery, to name a few. He lost all his teeth by middle age and wore various poor-fitting dentures made from ivory or different animals’ teeth, never wooden.
We’re fortunate the rugged, 6-foot-3-inch 230-pounder was relative healthy during the long, cold Revolutionary War. But after two terms as president, he was worn out and retired to work on his farm. Two years later, he died of a sore throat. It is interesting to me how so many great people seem to die soon after retirement. President Washington may have had a little help from his doctors.
On December 12, 1799, Washington became ill after coming in from a long, wet, cold day working on horseback on his farm. He complained of a sore throat and later, trouble breathing. Today we think he probably had a tonsillar abscess or bacterial epiglottis. The epiglottis is a flap of tissue in the lower throat that closes our airway when we swallow. If infected, it becomes inflamed and swollen and may occlude the airway. An abscessed tonsil could do the same. Even today, if not treated with antibiotics, these can be life threatening.
On December 14, Washington died. Three doctors were with him. Over a 12-hour period, they blistered his neck with a hot poultice in an attempt to draw out the infection, and they bled about five pints of blood from him in a “medical procedure” called bloodletting. A man his size has about 12 pints total. The doctors thought they could drain out the ”bad” blood and new, healthy blood would quickly take its place. Today, losing that amount would be called class 4 (the worst) hemorrhagic shock.
Of course, bacteria had only recently been discovered, and it would be years before we connected them with causing infections. Penicillin, the first major antibiotic, was not in use until the 1940s.
President Washington had access to the best doctors and scientists of his day, and all they did was make his situation worse. Today, we think science has all the answers. If scientists agree on something because of the scientific proof, then it is fact, no argument. It’s the best process we have, but I wonder, in 200 years or so, what undisputed facts today will be seen as our bloodletting then?
By James Hubbard, MD, MPH
My Family Doctor Blog
[Originally posted February 17, 2009, James Hubbard’s My Family Doctor Web site.]
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