Prologue: Adam Smith and the absurd prescriptions of doctors

By my count, the word “absurd” appears 36 times in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, but for me the most memorable use of this word is when Smith refers to “the absurd prescriptions” of doctors in Book II, Chapter 3 of his magnum opus. Here, Smith draws a direct analogy between two types of health systems, micro and macro, so to speak: i.e. the health of any given solitary individual (micro) and the financial health of an entire nation (macro): “The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite, not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the…