The Mysterious Placebo Effect

"Understanding it can help avoid flawed study designs.
BY CAROL HART
Mandrake root, powdered mummy, comb, spider web, ants, scorpions, bone, teeth, crab’s eyes, viper’s flesh, worms, and pearls. These are just a few of the ingredients from the premodern pharmacopoeia, some of which were still in use at the turn of the century. No one would question the fact that they worked as a placebo, if at all. But how many drugs in our current pharmacopoeia also might be ineffective? We rely on double-blind placebo-controlled trials to tell us, but the answers may not always hold true with clinical experience."

MDD July/August 1999: The Mysterious Placebo Effect: