Why Washington’s doctors drained his blood
The treatment was bloodletting: deliberately removing blood in the belief that it could reduce inflammation and restore balance to the body. In 1799, doctors had few reliable ways to treat a rapidly worsening throat illness. Washington developed severe difficulty swallowing and breathing, and his physicians treated him according to the medical theories of their time—not with the infection-fighting medicines available today.
They bled him repeatedly over the course of his final illness. The reasoning was that drawing blood might ease the inflammation obstructing his throat. But removing blood also reduced the amount available to carry oxygen and maintain circulation. In someone already struggling to breathe and growing critically ill, that could leave the body with still less reserve.
Treatment compounded a crisis
Washington’s illness is commonly understood as a severe infection affecting the throat and airway, though the exact diagnosis cannot be established with certainty from the surviving descriptions. Bloodletting did not clear such an infection or open an obstructed airway. Instead, the repeated loss of blood likely weakened him as his condition deteriorated.
It is too simple to say that one procedure alone killed him: the underlying illness was already grave, and doctors also used other treatments. But bloodletting stands out because it was intended to help and may have hastened the collapse it was meant to prevent. The episode shows how a respected medical practice, built on a mistaken model of disease, could turn a desperate attempt to treat a patient into an added physical burden.
