George Washington's death on 14 December 1799 may have been hastened by the four bleedings that weakened him.
Bleeding, a standard medical practice of the time, was based on the theory that removing diseased blood would speed the development of fresh, healthy blood. The 67-year-old former US president was suffering from an extreme form of tonsillitis. While it is not known how much blood was drawn altogether from his arm on the day of his death, at the fourth bleeding a whole quart was removed: the average human body contains only five quarts of blood. Washington's longtime physician, James Craik, wrote in retrospect that had they "taken no more blood from him, our good friend might have been alive now."
Before he died, Washington expressed his thanks to the doctors for their attention and then advised them to "Let me go off quietly."
一七九九年十二月十四日，喬治．華盛頓去世。醫生曾為他四次放血，以致他身體更弱，或反促其死。
從前，放血是常用的治療法，其理論是去除帶病血液，可令身體加速製造健康新血。華盛頓當時六十七歲，已退任美國總統，患了極嚴重的扁桃腺炎。他去世那天，總共從手臂放去多少血，今不可考，但第四次放去整整一夸脫血液，而人體平均只有五夸脫而已。長期照顧華盛頓的詹姆斯．克雷克醫生事後撰文說，假如「不復為我們這位好朋友放血，他今天或仍在世」。
華盛頓死前，向合力治療他的醫師致謝，然後告訴他們：「讓我靜靜的去吧。」