At the start of 1944, the battle raged on the Italian front.
The wounded flock to the US Army field hospital, but Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Beecher, an anesthesiologist in civilian life, is out of morphine.
He then has a funny idea: inject a saline solution and make the injured believe that it is the beneficial analgesic.
And it works… Here is Henry Beecher's interest aroused, and the beginning of an adventure that will open a new era in the study of the placebo effect.
A pretty story as medicine likes to tell, where misfortune smiles on the daring and makes science take a giant step.
But the best stories aren't always the truest... and this one is, in all likelihood, absolutely false.
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How does the placebo effect work?
Henry Beecher was an anesthetist, served on the Italian front and then advanced the science of the placebo effect.
But this story of physiological saline injected as morphine... Many authors have told it, including...
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