Davidc said:
Nonetheless, placebos are very effective and many doctors regret that in this era they aren't allowed to prescribe them.
I found myself wondering whether a dilute sryringeful of strawberry Crusha milkshake jollop would have the same effect as Calpol on my nephew when he's feeling off due to teething or an ear infection.
In fact we sort of used the placebo effect when I was down there. He had an ear infection, and was on banana flavour antibiotic syrup stuff. He'd been reluctant to eat (also teething) for a few days, and the first afternoon I was there wouldn't take any dinner, although he was clearly hungry - we offered him all sorts of normally restricted stuff like chocolate biscuits, to no avail, and he indicated that he wanted a banana, but then wouldn't eat it - you know how when you know you should eat, but don't feel up to it? My sister was worried that he wasn't getting enough to eat. But he would take his dose of banana antibiotic from a syringe - he's smart enough to have learned that medicine makes him feel better. Eventually, I had the idea of mashing a banana up really sloppy in milk, and giving him some from the syringe, to see if we could fool him that it was more medicine. He took it like a lamb, and then allowed my sister to feed it to him on a spoon - having rejected all spooned food previously. Result!
(Next day, his appetite was well and truly back - while at Creepy Crawlies in the morning he got through a finger of kitkat, an oaty bar thing, and a Jaffa Cake

)