Former President George H.W. Bush has left a Houston hospital where he spent nearly two months recovering from an illness that began with a bronchitis-related cough.

Bush spokesman Jim McGrath says the 88-year-old Bush was released Monday from Methodist Hospital.

He was admitted Nov. 23, the day after Thanksgiving, for treatment of complications resulting from bronchitis. He'd spent about a week at the hospital earlier that month for the same ailment.

Doctors said the most recent extended treatment was intended to avoid yet another hospital stay.

Antibiotics and steroids were prescribed to treat the cough. Doctors consistently said the illness wasn't life-threatening but that they wanted to prevent it from worsening to pneumonia.

Bush also spent a week in intensive care in order to knock down a fever.