PLACEBO: A DISGUSTING HISTORY A Placeb o is an inert pill – that is, a medication with zero therapeutic effect of its ingredients on the persons taking it. It is commonly called a ‘ dummy pill. ’ In Latin, placebo means, ‘ I shall please !’ However, placebos are not entirely the domain of pills or drugs – they come in many form s.
They can come as magic, religious rites, exorcism rituals, phlebotomy or ‘bloodletting’, emetics, purgatives, lotions, oils, suppositories, urine, menstrual blood, many kinds of ‘shit’ (feces of human and animal origin were recorded treatment methods), and the easily dispensed physical and psychic torture. Incidentally,bloodletting was the longest-lasting sham-treatment of our times; and according to some medical historians, it was this that killed George Washington . Placebos are routinely used in drug trial studies to find out whether the pharmacologic…
