Sacred knowledge

The historical roots of beliefs about the effects of drugs and manipulation go far back in time. All the peoples of the world had shamans, priests, healers and sorcerers who treated any ailment with the help of various rituals, amulets, sounds, words or spells. Studying the sources, scientists came to the conclusion that these practices and drugs often had no medicinal properties. With the development of medicine, it became clear that the success of ancient healers was primarily due to the placebo effect. In this regard, Russian placebo researcher, MD, Professor Izyaslav Lapin wrote: “As a doctor, I am often asked about magicians, sorcerers and their colleagues: “Do they really help?” They usually expect a negative response. They are surprised by the answer: “They help.” Sometimes I add, “And a sip of water helps. And one kind word helps.” I answer the doctors, adding: “And the placebo helps. Yes, indeed!””.

Application history

Before the rise of modern science, as noted by medical experts Arthur and Elaine Shapiro, therapy was largely based on the placebo effect. “The variety of treatments since time immemorial supports the view that, until recently, the history of treatment was essentially the history of the placebo effect… For example, the first three editions of the London Pharmacopoeia, published in the 17th century, included such useless medicines as usnea (lichen from the skull of victims of violent death) and a Vigo patch containing the flesh of vipers, live frogs and worms.” According to historical facts, doctors in the past quite often deliberately resorted to using placebos, realizing the power of thoughts on the body. It is known that in the nineteenth century, the founder of clinical medicine in Russia, Matvey Yakovlevich Mudrov, treated some of his patients with special powders: “gold”, “silver” and “plain” (according to the color of the paper packaging). Together with the doctor’s special instructions, these powders had a miraculous effect on patients, curing them of many diseases. Later it turned out that Mudrov’s colorful bags contained ordinary crushed chalk. It wasn’t quackery. On the contrary, Mudrov’s texts confirm that he perfectly understood the effectiveness of the placebo. “Knowing the mutual effects of the soul and body on each other, I consider it my duty to note that there are also mental medicines that heal the body… This art communicates to the sick the firmness of spirit that overcomes bodily pain, longing, and tossing… Admiration, joy, and confidence can sometimes be more useful than the medicine itself. The patient counts the hours and minutes, expects the effect of the medicine and thinks more about recovery than about the disease,” wrote Matvey Mudrov. Another example from the nineteenth century. In 1807, the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, described in his diary the use of a placebo by a successful doctor: “He used bread balls, drops of tinted water and powder from burnt nuts more often than all other medicines combined.” In 1903, Harvard Medical School professor Richard Cabot also wrote about the widespread use of “pacifiers” by American doctors: “Every doctor in his practice uses placebo pills made from bread or subcutaneous injections of an aqueous solution. Some colleagues use it more often, others less often… there was a time when I distributed them in bushels.”

The Science of Placebos

The active study of the placebo effect by scientists began only in the middle of the twentieth century. In 1955, American surgeon Henry Beecher published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “The Powerful Placebo,” in which he described the results of clinical trials: about a third of the patients he studied who took “pacifiers” felt better and improved. He first observed the effect of a placebo during the Second World War. Back then, frontline hospitals often experienced shortages of medicines and painkillers. In one such case, Henry Beecher, who worked as an anesthesiologist, had to inject patients with saline instead of morphine. At the same time, he told the patients that he was injecting them with a strong painkiller. Then Beecher became convinced of the effectiveness of the placebo, and after the war he continued to study it at Harvard University. After conducting clinical trials, the scientist came to the conclusion that the frequency of positive responses to placebo is quite high and is about 30%. He called this phenomenon the “placebo effect.” Thanks to Beecher, these concepts were separated. A placebo began to be understood as any deliberate imitation of a patient’s treatment without his knowledge. Most often, this role is played by a physiologically inert substance, less often by imaginary surgical operations. The placebo effect (or placebo effect) began to be called the effects of using a “pacifier” by a patient.