Re: Placebos in 19th century medicine: a quantitative analysis of the BMJ
Raicek, Stone & Kaptchuk shed new light on the history of placebo by identifying in the pages of 19th century British Medical Journal (BMJ) nine different categories for the use of the word placebo in medical literature of the time. (1)
Indeed the concept of placebo and placebo effect remained undefined and enshrined in mystery at least until the randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial was born (probably in 1948 in the BMJ with the Medical Research Council’s Streptomycin Trial in Pulmonary Tuberculosis). (2)
Even the very origin of the word placebo is unclear. Goetzsche writes that the placebo must be “something positive and subjective” because the Latin word placebo means “I will please”. (3)
However a fascinating alternative etymological hypothesis traces the origin of the term placebo to the beginning of the “Vespers of the Dead” in Christian funeral liturgy: “Placebo Domino in regione vivorum” (I shall please the Lord in the land of the living; Latin Vulgate Bible, Psalm 114, Verse 9). The use of the term may have originated as a popular derisory appellative given to these rituals and to the clergymen who recited these verses, incomprehensible to most attendants, (4) (quite like the words “hokus pokus” are also thought to derive from the Latin words in Christian liturgy “hoc est corpus” (this is the body) ).
Perhaps because of the analogy with unintelligible, ineffective rituals the term placebo was extended to counterfeit, burlesque medicine for which in the 18th century it was a pejorative term.
The credibility of this hypothesis is further corroborated by the fact that it is unlikely that scholarly medical language (Latin, the international medical language of the time) would use the term placebo for a substance or procedure devoid of pharmacological activity which would be referred to as placebit, “it will please”, rather than “I will please”. (5) At any rate the origin of the term placebo, remarkably intriguing, remains elusive and speculative.
References
1.BMJ 2012;345:e8326
2.BMJ 1948; ii. Streptomycin Treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. A Medical Research Council Investigation:769-82.
3.Goetzsche PC. Is there logic in the placebo? Lancet 1994; 344: 925-26.
4.Wall PD. The placebo and the placebo response. In: Wall PD, Melzack R, eds. Textbook of pain, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Churchill-Livingstone, 1994: 1297-308.
5.Simini B. Placebos in Medicine. Lancet 1994; 344:1642.
Raicek, Stone & Kaptchuk shed new light on the history of placebo by identifying in the pages of 19th century British Medical Journal (BMJ) nine different categories for the use of the word placebo in medical literature of the time. (1)
Indeed the concept of placebo and placebo effect remained undefined and enshrined in mystery at least until the randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial was born (probably in 1948 in the BMJ with the Medical Research Council’s Streptomycin Trial in Pulmonary Tuberculosis). (2)
Even the very origin of the word placebo is unclear. Goetzsche writes that the placebo must be “something positive and subjective” because the Latin word placebo means “I will please”. (3)
However a fascinating alternative etymological hypothesis traces the origin of the term placebo to the beginning of the “Vespers of the Dead” in Christian funeral liturgy: “Placebo Domino in regione vivorum” (I shall please the Lord in the land of the living; Latin Vulgate Bible, Psalm 114, Verse 9). The use of the term may have originated as a popular derisory appellative given to these rituals and to the clergymen who recited these verses, incomprehensible to most attendants, (4) (quite like the words “hokus pokus” are also thought to derive from the Latin words in Christian liturgy “hoc est corpus” (this is the body) ).
Perhaps because of the analogy with unintelligible, ineffective rituals the term placebo was extended to counterfeit, burlesque medicine for which in the 18th century it was a pejorative term.
The credibility of this hypothesis is further corroborated by the fact that it is unlikely that scholarly medical language (Latin, the international medical language of the time) would use the term placebo for a substance or procedure devoid of pharmacological activity which would be referred to as placebit, “it will please”, rather than “I will please”. (5) At any rate the origin of the term placebo, remarkably intriguing, remains elusive and speculative.
References
1.BMJ 2012;345:e8326
2.BMJ 1948; ii. Streptomycin Treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. A Medical Research Council Investigation:769-82.
3.Goetzsche PC. Is there logic in the placebo? Lancet 1994; 344: 925-26.
4.Wall PD. The placebo and the placebo response. In: Wall PD, Melzack R, eds. Textbook of pain, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Churchill-Livingstone, 1994: 1297-308.
5.Simini B. Placebos in Medicine. Lancet 1994; 344:1642.
Competing interests: No competing interests