Use of placebos can help in healing

Dear Reader:
I receive a lot of mail from readers suggesting material for this column. Recently, I received a humorous piece entitled 16 Things It Takes Years to Learn. I published this in my column of May 21, 2000 with the notice that the author was unknown. I have since found that this material was originally published in Dave Barry’s book “Dave Barry Turns 50”.


From the back of his wooden wagon he leaned forward toward the crowd. In one hand he held up a brown bottle, hailing its potent, curative powers. His other hand mesmerized the audience by twisting his lengthy handlebar mustache around his long graceful fingers. Was he a snake oil salesman or a purveyor of alternative medicine, a century before his time? In either case, the success of his magical remedies was largely dependent on the power of the placebo effect.

The placebo’s history dates back to medieval times when mistranslations of the 116th psalm in the Hebrew Bible resulted in the Latin phrase “I shall please”. In the middle ages, professional mourners were hired to sing vespers (placebos) for the dead. By the early 19th century, placebo referred to a medicinal treatment given more to please than to benefit the patient. Medical problems where the patient’s self report is used to measure intensity such as migraine headache, back pain, post surgical pain, rheumatoid arthritis, angina, and depression often respond well to a placebo. Other more objectively measured problems such as blood pressure, some skin conditions such as warts, and heart rate can also respond significantly to placebos.

Placebos are also used in experimental medicine. The experimental (active substance or treatment) is given to one group of patients and an inert (inactive substance or treatment), a placebo, is given to a control group. At the end of the study the two groups are compared in order to assess whether any changes that take place are due to the experimental treatment or to psychological factors. Some medical researchers have concluded that between 30 and 70 percent of any treated group will respond to a placebo. In fact, some studies have shown the placebo effect to exceed those attributed to the active drug.

There are several explanations for the placebo effect. Perhaps the most widely accepted is that the placebo effect appears as an involuntary conditioned reflex of the patient’s body. People who have experienced relief in medical settings or from ingesting a pill are “primed”, like Pavlov’s dogs, to do the same again. The placebo effect then is a result of the patient’s expectation of an effect.

Current medical thinking encourages healthcare providers to make use of the powerful self-healing forces of the mind-body connection. The savvy healthcare provider introduces treatment with enthusiasm and optimism rather than simply suggesting that the treatment may or may not be of assistance to the patient.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 2000