The Placebo Effect
The healing environment
is a powerful antidote for illness.
Top photo and quotation from "The Placebo Effect" by Walter
A. Brown, in Scientific American, January 1998. Lower photo
(Haitian healing ceremony) from Sexualia: From Prehistory to Cyberspace,
by Clifford Bishop and Xenia
Osthelder.
Believe it or not, the article says: "Medicine has become
vastly more scientific in the past century—gone are the potions,
brews and bloodlettings of antiquity. Nevertheless, doctors and their patients
continue to ascribe healing powers to pills and procedures that have no
intrinsic therapeutic value."
Among us are some who believe that the Earth is the supreme
healer. What do you believe? Which therapeutic environment do you prefer?
This item is in development...
jll June 2004 |