Coming soon: two new series on Adam Smith

Starting tomorrow (16 Sep), I will begin sharing the details of two new scholarly projects that I have been working on these past few weeks. One of my projects explores Adam Smith’s own personal experiences with doctors and the health practices of his day, including such quack remedies as tar water and the practice of bloodletting. (I will also survey Smith’s hard-core free-market views on medical education. See especially letter #143 in The Correspondence of Adam Smith; Mossner & Ross 1987, pp. 173-179). My other project builds on the previous work of Anderson, Shughart, & Tollison (1985), who pointed me to an archive preserved on microfilm containing over 1,100 pieces of correspondence signed by Adam Smith in his capacity as as commissioner of Scottish customs. I will thus be doing a deep dive into Smith’s work as a customs official during the last 12 years of his life. In the meantime, I will continue the painstaking process of transcribing the contents of this archive. WORKS CITED…