Spring Fever: Catch It!

Did you know …

That President George Washington died of spring fever? It’s true!

In December of 1799, during an infamously short and warm winter, Washington reportedly became highly agitated while “cooped up in [his] tiny, dismal home.” His behavior became erratic, and he claimed to be suffering from extremely high body temperatures, although Martha Washington refused to confirm this, on account of George being “the grossest.” Within hours, Washington’s eyeballs had melted from his skull, and the rest of his organs gradually failed over the next two days.

Some medical historians believe that he was in fact suffering from cabin fever, but Martha indicated in her memoirs that George had an erection for the entirety of those two days, a symptom much more commonly associated with spring fever. Washington’s body was exhumed in 1858 with the intention of confirming the cause of death, but by that point he had pretty much completely rotted away, boner and all. I don’t know why they didn’t predict that—people were dumber back then, but corpses were everywhere too, and you’d think they’d have a general handle on the processes of decomposition.