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All Placebos are not created equal (2021)

Have you ever heard of a Perkins Tractor? If you lived in London in the 18th Century, you could buy a pair of Perkins Tractors (shown above) for the steep price of five guineas, and wave them over an aching part of your body for about twenty minutes as a way of relieving your pain. They worked, sort of. People who bought and used Perkins Tractors

If you lived in London in the 18th Century, you could buy a pair of Perkins Tractors (shown above) for the steep price of five guineas, and wave them over an aching part of your body for about twenty minutes as a way of relieving your pain. They worked just as well as the Perkins Tractors that were selling in London street stalls for five guineas, and thus the Placebo effect was demonstrated for the first time - “Such is the wonderful force of imagination!”, remarked Haygarth. - given that, over the past ten years, 90% of potential drugs for the treatment of cancer pain have failed at advanced stages of clinical trials, this seems like it’s worth thinking about a bit more.

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