The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration - Softcover

Anne Harrington

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067466986X ISBN 13: 9780674669864

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1999

Synopsis

A mere "symbol" of medicine-the sugar pill, saline injection, doctor in a white lab coat-the placebo nonetheless sometimes produces "real" results. Medical science has largely managed its discomfort with this phenomenon by discounting the placebo effect, subtracting it as an impurity in its data through double-blind tests of new treatments and drugs. This book is committed to a different perspective-namely, that the placebo effect is a "real" entity in its own right, one that has much to teach us about how symbols, settings, and human relationships literally get under our skin.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Harrington is Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

This book, drawing on contributions from fields as diverse as cultural anthropology, religion, pharmacology and molecular biology, reviews the roles of placebos in history and discusses the difficulties in making sense of them. At a time when quackery costs the nation an estimated $30 billion a year, such research couldn't be more timely.-Peter Gorner, Chicago Tribune

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067466986X
• ISBN 13: 9780674669864
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274