George Washington's doctors absolved
Poor medical care didn’t kill George Washington, a new study concludes--his final illness was a hopeless situation.
The death of the U.S. founding father from a throat infection at 67 triggered an immediate and still-smoldering debate over whether doctors contributed to his demise, in particular through their copious blood extractions. Blood letting was standard medical practice then, though it was already questioned in some quarters.
The author of the new study [Michael Cheatham of the Surgical Intensive Care Units at Orlando Regional Medical Center in Florida] claims Washington would almost certainly have died no matter what his three physicians did.
Read entire article at World Science
The death of the U.S. founding father from a throat infection at 67 triggered an immediate and still-smoldering debate over whether doctors contributed to his demise, in particular through their copious blood extractions. Blood letting was standard medical practice then, though it was already questioned in some quarters.
The author of the new study [Michael Cheatham of the Surgical Intensive Care Units at Orlando Regional Medical Center in Florida] claims Washington would almost certainly have died no matter what his three physicians did.