Someone is out to kill George Washington. Yes, I know he's been dead for nearly two hundred years. But all the same, old George had better look out.
I'm not actually speaking about those in this country who revise history and change the heros into villains, who are ashamed of our past, who have taken our shortcomings as a nation and held them up as a sign that this whole social experiment is flawed. This will be a topic for a different post.
Instead, I am concerned about the cures that many advocate for our economic woes. These supposed cures may be turn out to be worse than the disease itself.
Contrary to popular belief, George Washington did not die of natural causes. Two days before his death, he went out riding on his land in cold weather to inspect his plantation. The next day, the healthy 68-year old President complained of a sore throat. He refused to let a little thing like a cold get him down, so he went out riding again, this time in heavy snow.
By the next morning, the President was having difficulty breathing. He sent for the doctor and tried various concoctions to ease the sore throat, along with some generous blood-letting. (At the time, too much blood was thought to be the cause of various ailments, and many, including the President, believed that deliberately opening a vein and removing blood could cure many illnesses.) At 10:10 pm on December 14, 1799, President George Washington breathed his last.
For many years, scholars and physicians have speculated about the identity of the illness to which the President succumbed. What many have overlooked, however, is a cause of death hiding in plain sight. When the records of the various doctors involved in the care of the President during his final hours are examined carefully, it becomes evident that nearly 8 pints of blood were removed from his body within a span of hours. Considering that the average man has a total blood volume of only 11 pints, it becomes clear that regardless of the source of the sore throat, it was the excessive bloodletting that actually killed our first President. And this was at the hands of his doctors and at the specific urging of the President!
What can we learn from this bizarre history lesson? And what in the world does this have to do with the United States economy?
1. It is possible for the experts to be completely wrong. The physicians of the day were convinced that blood-letting would cure many diseases. Now science has proven them wrong. Many economists would argue that we can spend our way out of this recession. In fact, just today the Fed chairman Ben Bernanke guessed that many jobs would be lost if the federal budget was reduced. Wouldn't that imply that if the government did just the opposite that jobs would be created? Maybe if the government spent a billion dollars for every citizen, we could eliminate unemployment the world over!
2. Intentions don't matter nearly so much as results. Many of those who advocate raising taxes to help pay for unemployment benefits and higher salaries for teachers and school lunch programs have great intentions. They just don't fully understand the dire economic consequences of ever increasing taxes and deficits that threaten the very life of this nation.
3. Everyone runs out of blood eventually. Our first President was an impressive man, at 6' 3" and over 200 pounds. But when enough blood was taken from him, there was no way he could recover. Let the politicians bicker over what has caused this economic turmoil. One thing is sure, raising taxes will only bleed us dry.
References:
1. Vadakan, V ibul V, MD, FAAP "The Asphyxiating and Exsanguinating Death of President George Washington" The Permanente Journal Spring 2004 Web. 28 Feb. 2011. http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/spring04/time.html
2. Wallenborn, White McKenzie, MD "George Washington's Terminal Illness: A Modern Medical Analysis of the Last Illness and Death of George Washington" The Papers of George Wasington Web. 28 Feb. 2011. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/wallenborn.html
3. Elert, Glenn "Volume of Blood in a Human" Web. 28 Feb 2011 http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/LanNaLee.shtml
