Журнал клинических и медицинских наук

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On the History of the Placebo Effect: A Brief Outline

Heinz Schott

The placebo effect (and maybe still more the nocebo effect) is one of the greatest challenges for academic medicine. There are numerous examples for their effectiveness regarding the literature of medical history. Let us consider the most extreme situations: Patients suffering from a disease with an infest prognosis may recover unexpectedly due to the placebo effect of a special manipulation or belief sometimes called 'miraculous healing' (of course, academic medicine must not rely on it), on the other hand, healthy people may be killed by the nocebo effect of a frightening imagination e.g. a voodoo spell well-known in ethnology.