Placebo Effect

History of the Placebo Effect

The term placebo is a literal translation of the Latin phrase I will please. Its first documentation in an English dictionary did not occur until 1785. In 1920, T. C. Graves was the first to formalize the current conception of the medicine-like effects of placebo administration. In the 1950s, Henry Beecher attempted to quantify it. After a series of studies, he noted that the condition for which a patient was being treated greatly affected the percentage of those for whom a placebo alone was a satisfactory remedy. The effect, however, was much more prevalent than he expected, significantly influencing the amount of perceived pain in 30% of all patients.

A better understanding of the placebo effect spawned methodological transformations in the mid-20th century. Although placebo-controlled studies occurred on occasion throughout history, it was not until the 1930s that the widespread use of a dummy simulator was used as a means to test an experimental drug. This allowed researchers to compare the differences (or lack thereof) between the placebo effect of a specific medium on a specific condition and the drug effect on the same sample. Thus, experimenters could examine which drugs were significantly more effective than placebo treatment alone.

The inclusion of a placebo group is now standard practice in medical research. Drug manufacturers, prescribing physicians, and consumers demand assurance that medications or treatments are more effective than a placebo procedure. Therefore, before a treatment protocol or regimen is widely adopted, the placebo effect must be used as a baseline for such comparisons. Because the addition of a placebo group greatly complicates the research methodology and interpretation, the placebo effect is generally considered a necessary but burdensome aspect of medical research.

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