Cure or Killer?

In January 1765 twenty-six-year-old George III was suffering from fever, restlessness, nausea, and chest pains. On the thirteenth of the month his doctors, completely stumped, reported "a violent cold, a restless night, complained of [pains] in his breast." They did the only thing they could agree on: "His Majesty was blooded 14 ounces." His Majesty eventually recovered. Thirty-four years later, the king's old nemesis, George Washington, lay sick with what may have been diphtheria. He had already been bled once by his plantation overseer, and two of his three doctors repeated the process three more times. Despite (or because of) their ministrations, Washington died the next night.

Approved Practice.

What was good enough for a British king and an American president was considered good enough for everyone else. Exsanguination, or bleeding, was an almost universally approved treatment for a vast array of illnesses. The...