My Dear Midas,

My Dear Midas,

I have decided, in my waning years, to pursue a field of study in which I believe you will have an interest.

As you know, I was trained in the practice of medicine.  As you may or may not know, medicine is the epitome of an "empirical science".  We learn by doing in medicine, try to remember what we do, both right and wrong, and learn from our experiences.  Each of us, as physicians, learns many basic axioms, for instance those found in the physical and chemical sciences, which we know apply to our discipline.  However, we also learn, because our subject (humans) is so astoundingly complex, that we may not be able to predict the effect of every milligram of every drug we give, or how every patient will react to every operation.  Nonetheless, we know certain things, like, for instance "if a patient loses enough blood, he will die", or "if the patient has a blood pressure of 50, and nothing changes, bad things will happen to him".  We call the aberrances from normal states "pathological" states.  For instance, normal skin can have a "pathology" in may ways - cancer, dermatitis of various types, etc. 

I have watched the behavior of men for many years when it comes to money, economy, and human action associated with these things.  In this science, too, we know certain axioms.  We also know that we can never follow the course of every dollar nor predict the outcome of every group of humans' desires.  However, we have not studied, in detail, what I will call "econopathology", that is, the pathologic states which can occur in economic behavior.

It is this subject which interests me and which I intend to pursue.

I will write more to you on this subject as days pass.

Your friend,

Epimenides