Placebo Effect

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it is themselves, not the medicine, which makes them feel better. These are the findings of Dr. Brown.
In his experiments on the placebos, he found that the placebo can make a
person feel better, but it can also have no effect what-so-ever. In his study of the depressed patients, about 50% of the subjects with normal levels of cortisone benefited from the placebo, whereas, only about 35% of the depressed patients benefited from the drug. This led Dr. Brown to realize that there are other factors in treating depression. He found that the persons with short-term depression responded more favorably to the placebo than those with long-term depression.
Other doctors also performed “placebo experiments” to realize if it really works. One example would be of the experiments led by Edmunds G. Diamond of the University of Kansas Medical Center in the 1950’s. His research involved the surgery to treat angina pectoris. He had a set of 18 patients suffering from this ...

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