Traditionally, the effectiveness of medical treatments is attributed to specific elements, such as drugs or surgical procedures. However, many other factors can significantly effect the outcome. Drugs with nationally advertised names can work better than the same drug without the name. Inert drugs (placebos, dummies) often have dramatic effects on some patients and effects can vary greatly among different European countries where the "same" medical condition is understood differently. Daniel Moerman traverses a complex subject area in this detailed examination of medical variables. Since 1993, Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology has offered researchers and instructors monographs and edited collections of leading scholarship in one of the most lively and popular subfields of cultural and social anthropology. Beginning in 2002, the CSMA series presents theme booksworks that synthesize emerging scholarship from relatively new subfields or that reinterpret the literature of older ones. Designed as course material for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and for professionals in related areas (physicians, nurses, public health workers, and medical sociologists), these theme books will demonstrate how work in medical anthropology is carried out and convey the importance of a given topic for a wide variety of readers. About 160 pages in length, the theme books are not simply staid reviews of the literature. They are, instead, new ways of conceptualizing topics in medical anthropology that take advantage of current research and the growing edges of the field.
Author(s): Daniel E. Moerman
Series: Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 186
Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Dedication......Page 9
Contents......Page 11
Figures......Page 12
Tables......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Introduction: “Pickle ash” and “high blood”......Page 17
A plan of the book......Page 20
Part I The meaning response......Page 23
An ulcer trial......Page 25
Placebo Domino: “shall please the Lord”......Page 26
Why sick people get well......Page 28
Some definitions......Page 29
Pain relief with “Trivaricane” and saline solution......Page 32
Headaches and advertising......Page 34
Conclusions......Page 36
Blessing Way and Placebo Way......Page 38
Measuring blood pressure......Page 39
Diagnosis is treatment......Page 41
Untreated control groups......Page 42
Clinical trials......Page 43
What the doctor knows makes a difference......Page 48
Patient psychology and the search for “placebo responders”......Page 49
Doctor effects and the search for “placebogenesis”......Page 51
Doctor–patient communication......Page 55
Conclusions......Page 57
Meaningful pills (pink and blue ones)......Page 63
Soccer and the Virgin Mary......Page 65
Two is more than one......Page 66
Capsules and tablets; shots and pills......Page 67
Meaningful surgery......Page 69
Coronary artery disease......Page 71
Placebo pacemakers......Page 77
“Bloodlines” and lasers......Page 78
Lumbar disk herniation......Page 80
Ménière’s disease......Page 81
Conclusions......Page 82
Proper meals, clothing, pills......Page 83
Knowing acupuncture and analgesia......Page 86
Menopause, estrogen and culture......Page 89
An epidemic of ADHD......Page 91
France, Germany, Britain, and the United States......Page 93
Shots and pills again......Page 94
Ulcer treatment here and there......Page 96
Conclusions......Page 99
Part II Applications, challenges, and opportunities......Page 103
Everyone has won and all must have prizes......Page 105
Professors as therapists......Page 108
So, how does psychotherapy work? Placebo or meaning?......Page 109
Meaning and disclosure......Page 112
Conclusions......Page 115
Neurology of pain......Page 116
Placebo – and opiate – analgesia......Page 118
The Benedetti clarification......Page 121
Of pain, poetry, music, and love......Page 124
The cultural biology of pain; WASPS, Jews and Italians......Page 125
Electric shock and other tortures......Page 128
Conclusions......Page 131
Adherence and survival......Page 132
Health perception and survival......Page 135
How can we understand adherence and global health rating?......Page 136
“Conditioning” placebo effects......Page 138
Expectations......Page 141
The case of the Kwakiutl shaman......Page 143
Medicine and deceptions......Page 144
The Declaration of Helsinki......Page 145
Placebo mania and placebo phobia......Page 146
Part III Meaning and human biology......Page 147
Sightings......Page 149
The land of Oz......Page 151
Placebo socket wrenches and Dodge trucks......Page 152
Independent and dependent variables......Page 154
A general theory......Page 157
When meaning responses don’t occur......Page 160
13 Conclusions: many claims, many issues......Page 163
References......Page 172
Index......Page 185
