In the Pandemic Crisis we Must Understand How Placebo Works

Abstract

This is a real case. Many years ago, in a Pandemic much worse than the present one, called black plaque, a young scientist was the first to report at the Austrian Academy of Sciences that he had found what causes the plaque – a small organism, which he called “virus”. He showed a small bottle with insulated viruses and said this amount would be enough to kill the whole population of the city of Vienne.  No one of the white-headed Academician believed him. One of them stepped forward and saying: “Young man you are talking nonsense and I am going to prove it”, he took the small bottle and swallowed the whole content. The young man was horrified, he saw in his mind the Academician lying on the floor in convulsions, but nothing like this happened. The Academician walked triumphantly to his seat. Now, when we know that viruses exist, how we can explain something like this. The Academician was so convinced that nothing would happen that indeed nothing happened.