#58749
02/26/2002 6:54 PM
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The Canadian company that prepared the ice for the Men's Hockey final at Salt Lake buried a Canadian gold-colored dollar coin (known as a Loonie) at Center Ice for good luck before the game. The "Great One", Wayne Gretsky, was presented with the coin after the the Canadians won the game. He said it was a "cool idea" and he is donating the Loonie to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. As a Canadian I am not complaining about our "Lucky Loonie" but I allow that Americans may not see the humor in it. Apart from that, I am wondering how one should describe this superstitious ritual. Is the Loonie a talisman for good luck or a hex on the opponent? Or what is it in the vernacular of the superstitious?
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#58750
02/26/2002 7:45 PM
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Dear Plutarch: I know of no way to forecast how the Bitch Goddess of Luck can be influenced reliably. I doubt very much though that a measly one buck can buy her favors.
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#58751
02/26/2002 8:08 PM
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I doubt very much though that a measly one buck can buy her favors.No Bill, you're right. It costs at least $1.50 to get so much as a sneer out of her ... 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#58752
02/26/2002 8:33 PM
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Are you sure plutarch? That smells of urban legend to me.
I don't think that the Americans would have allowed that to happen and I don't recall anybody hacking away at the ice to give Gretsky the loonie either.
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#58753
02/26/2002 8:48 PM
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Dear belMarduk: no hacking. A pail of hot water would do it.
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#58754
02/27/2002 11:57 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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Yes belM, in the interviews afterward Gretzky was showing us the loonie. The guys who made the ice for the E Center were from Canada, and so they buried the loonie at centre ice. They are going to present it to the hockey hall of fame. I am trying to find a link to mention of it in the news story.
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#58755
02/27/2002 12:01 PM
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old hand
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#58756
02/27/2002 12:53 PM
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I'm sorry but that seems so wrong.
When you are hired to do a job you have to do it honourably and hiding a talisman in the ice was not part of the requested package. If I was a U.S. American I would be insulted at this breach of etiquette. If I was the company's president, I would apologize.
I'm not a superstitious person, but many are. I believe my teams won because right there, right then, they were the best in the world. I don't want that feat diluted.
I know I may be making a mountain out of a molehill but the eyes of the world are upon you during the Olympics. I like the fact that Canadians have always been regarded as honest, upfront individuals - not sneaky, dishonourable ones.
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#58757
02/27/2002 12:58 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
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> Canadians have always been regarded as honest, upfront individuals - not sneaky, dishonourable ones.
Which helped set them apart from their rivals :-)
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#58758
02/27/2002 9:53 PM
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I may be making a mountain out of a molehill
... or perhaps an iceberg out of crushed ice. The New York Times reported the 'lucky loonie' story very prominently on Monday without a hint of rancor. And no American of any note took any offence ... that I know of. I guess no-one believes in talismans any more ... if that's what it was. For the record, no-one has suggested that any Canadian hockey official was "in" on the ritual at the time it was performed. Which raises an interesting ancillary question. Does the victim of voodoo have to be aware that he is being voodooed before he can be voodoomized? (In other words, is voodoo just a placebo effect in reverse. If so, the secret Loonie had no power even upon the superstitious.) P.S. Here is Loonie story as reported in New York Times - for those who might be interested:
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 24 — The coin is called a loonie, a Canadian dollar worth 63 cents in American currency and incalculable wealth in Canadian pride. Before the Olympic hockey tournaments, Canadian workers who make the ice in the E Center placed it beneath the frozen playing surface. After Canada won the men's gold medal with a 5-2 victory over the United States this afternoon, Wayne Gretzky held the coin in his fingers and said he would send it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
"Just a cool idea," said Gretzky, the executive director for the men's team, as he gazed at the lucky buck, which had been dug up. On the other side of it, figuratively, was a gold medal for Canada's women's team on this same rink, against the same opponent, three days ago.
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#58759
02/28/2002 2:24 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Hi, plutarch! [blowing kiss e] Well, I don't see any problem with what the folk did, since it couldn't have had any effect on the outcome--didn't make a ridge in the ice, or anything like that. Guess I just revealed how much I believe in talismans, eh? Though I do know there is such a thing as a psychological advantage. Did either of the teams know about the presence of the Loonie? But personally, I can't really imagine that it would have made a whole lot of difference, even if the Canadian team knew about it and their opponents didn't.
Now--you have asked a question that I have often thought about: Does the victim of voodoo have to be aware that he is being voodooed before he can be voodoomized? The idea of someone trying a voodoo spell on me always makes me laugh, because a.) I don't believe in it, and b.) how on earth would I know? If anyone I'm acquainted with practices voodoo, I am unaware of it.
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#58760
02/28/2002 3:25 AM
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If anyone I'm acquainted with practices voodoo, I am unaware of it.
[evil grin -e]
you are in my power ...
you are in the gutter ...
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#58761
02/28/2002 5:21 PM
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Did I hear something? ...nah.
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#58762
03/01/2002 12:36 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
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Like you Jackie I care little for superstition. A down side of this however is that I don't know a whole lot on the subject.
One I do know about but is the "pointing of the bone" in Australian Aboriginal culture. I don't know if it's still practiced, but if you had done something wrong and the bone was pointed at you by the "gadaitcha" man (sp? - witch doctor) of the tribe you were a goner.
There are validated European accounts of these events throughout the 1800's and early 1900's. I recall that sometimes the recipient didn't see the bone being pointed, but seemed to just know - and slowly started to die. Could have been they knew they'd overstepped tribal law and what the punishment would be.
I don't think a bone was the tool used by all tribes - I've heard of others being sung to death.
It makes a conundrum for English law in this country. If a gadaitcha man causes somebody to die through bone pointing or singing, are they themselves guilty of murder under white man's law?
"Payback" is still quite prevalent in Aboriginal culture. It consists of spearing the perp in the legs and is usually conducted by tribal elders and/or the victim's family - often in response to cases of rape or violence. White man's law acknowledges the validity and imprtance of payback to aboriginal people and usually takes no action against the spear throwers. It does however apply to the original perp - particularly if the crimes are of the type mentioned.
stales
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#58763
03/01/2002 1:19 AM
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Posts: 3,409
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#58764
03/01/2002 1:20 AM
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Payback" is still quite prevalent in Aboriginal culture. It consists of spearing the perp in the legs Um--sure you don't want to come Stateside, Sweetie? That's mighty...primitive. How in the world could anyone be sung to death? Would they have to die of boredom?  I assume some sort of spell or curse is sung?
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#58765
03/01/2002 1:41 AM
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Posts: 3,409
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#58766
03/01/2002 1:50 AM
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Max, you and I are fellow cumberbunces. http://f2.org/humour/language/nonsense.html#Cumberbunce: I never sang a single song,
I never hummed a note.
There is in me no melody,
No music in my throat.
So that is why I do not sing
Of sharks, or whales, or anything!
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#58767
03/01/2002 2:49 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
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>There are validated European accounts of these events throughout the 1800's and early 1900's.
It is always interesting when the cases are analysed by modern Anthropological Pathologists. The underlying causes of the deaths are often found to be common illnesses, some easily curable with modern medicines.
I saw one such example in a documentary on Egyptian tombs, where a woman visiting King Tut's tomb died after touching the walls. Her air passages had been infected with mold spores. She was just recovering from a lengthy battle with cancer so her body could not combat the spores, but most visitors to the tomb never have that problem.
Imagine the same scenario happening when they opened the tomb. It would have been a great mystery and definitely blamed on the curse.
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#58768
03/01/2002 12:06 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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Jackie You are correct - bone pointing and "singing" a person to death are mighty primitive. But please bear in mind we are talking about arguably the world's oldest civilisation - and if that constitutes "primitive" then so be it. I've done a bit more research and it seems that bone pointing and singing are integral parts of the same punishment ceremony. The following are snippets I found on the web and, if you are really keen, there's an excellent url at the base of this post. It's well written and informative - sums up everything I've had to say about the original Australians in past posts. Please read it. "When law was broken it was the elders who pointed the bone at the offender (s) or enemy who made the serious breach of the law. Often the bone was the arm of a dead elder, attached with hair at the end of it and sharpened to a fine point. Another effective punishment was 'singing' a person to death, pointing the bone at the offender to take away his life energies, and when he had the knowledge that he was sung, he would die unless there was a stronger magic."and.... "In 1953 an aborigine named Kinjika was flown from his native Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory to a hospital in Darwin, the territorial capital. He had not been injured or poisoned, was not suffering from any know disease, but he was dying. Kinjika survived for four days in great pain after entering the hospital, and on the fifth day he died, the victim of bone pointing, a method of execution or murder that leaves no trace and almost never fails. The dead man had been a member of the Mailli tribe and had broken one of its laws governing incestuous relationships. Following this he had been summoned before a tribal council, had refused to attend, and in his absence had been sentenced to death. Kinjinka then fled his homeland, and the tribal executioner, the 'mulunguwa', made and ritually "loaded" the killing bone, or kundela. The bone used maybe human, kangaroo, or emu, or it may be fashioned from wood. The design varies from tribe to tribe. Most are from six to nine inches long, pointed at one end, and shaved to a smooth roundness. At the other end a braid of hair is attached through a hole or with a resinous gum derived from the spinifex bush. To be effective, the kundela must be charged with powerful psychic energy, in a complex ritual that must be performed faultlessly. The process is kept secret from women and all who are not members of the tribe. if the condemned man has fled from his village, the loaded bone is given to the kurdaitcha, the tribe's ritual killers. The kurdaitcha take their name from the special slippers they wear when hunting a condemned man. These are woven from Cockatoo feathers and human hair and leave virtually no footprints. The hunters clothe themselves with Kangaroo hair, which they stick to their skin after first coating themselves with human blood, and they don masks of emu feathers. Usually operating in two's or three's, they are relentless and will pursue their quarry for years if necessary. When the hunters finally corner their man, they approach to within 15 feet or so, and one kurdaitcha, or "hit man", dropping to his knee, holds the bone in his fist and points it like a pistol. At this instant, the condemned man is said to be frozen with fear. The kurdaitcha thrusts the bone towards him and utters a brief, piercing chant. He and his fellow hunters then withdraw, leaving the pointed man to his own devices. When they return to their village, the kundela is ceremonially burned. The condemned man may live for several more days or weeks. But convinced of the kundela's fatal power, his relatives and members of any other tribe he may meet (who will certainly have heard that he has been pointed) treat him as though he were already dead. The ritual loading of the kundella creates a psychic counterpart of the bone a "Spear of thought" as it has been described which pierces the condemned man when the bone is pointed at him. Once he has been wounded, the victim's death is certain, as though an actual spear had been thrust though him.The article is at: http://users.orac.net.au/~mhumphry/aborigin.htmlstales
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#58769
03/01/2002 1:20 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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RE: "gadaitcha" man (sp? - witch doctor)
[rant]
I really hate the term witch doctor! all medicine uses some psycological components..
think of "doctors"-- how do your recognize a doctor? well, one way is the (US) is with the magical images they display.. college diplomas, medical school diplomas, board certications, every peice of paper they got along the way, is laminated or framed. and half of them are printed in latin, to increase there magical properties.. (secret languages are always used!)
doctors also use secret languages when speaking.. common folks have cancer.. but doctors talk about malignant carsonomias. they were special ritual clothes too, sometimes these are scrubs, other times they are white coats.. and they carry with them ritual talismans, steathoscopes, and or other special tools.. and their tools all have special names..
but we all hold that there is science behind it, so our medicine is better.. the real facts are health and longevity in the modern world owes more to plumbers than to doctors.. (it is flush toilets and clean water to drink and wash your hand with after defecating that really improve your life, not doctors!)
many of todays modern medicines, are from 'traditional' herbal remedies. and the placebo efffect is well documented.. and it works with doctors, not just drugs..
a doctor wrote about the effect.. a patient had a cardiac (secret code here-- heart) problem.. its referedone called galloping heart the heart keeps beating so fast, (it is a complication of heart surgery) that patients almost inevitable die of it.. there is no good treatment.
one patient, just coming out of aneathesia, heard the doctors mention "galloping heart" the patient interpted this as "his heart is as strong as a horse's, he can go at full gallop now!" and made what to the doctors was, "an incredible!" recovery.
what saved the man? his belief in what the doctors had said! not medicine, not drugs, but magical words from a powerful doctor. -- but remember, our medicine is scientific, and its the other guys who are witch doctors!
[/rant]
i think western medicine has learned a great deal about how humans physical function. they are scientist.. but good doctors are healers.. some of our scientist are also good healers, but some healers, know almost no science!
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#58770
03/01/2002 2:49 PM
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Dear of troy: Remember that the plumbers did nothing much for public health until John Snow showed the way:
"The first prominent epidemiological investigation was conducted in 1849 by the English physician John Snow, who observed that the London cholera epidemic occurred chiefly in regions served by the Broad Street pump. After the pump was shut down, the epidemic subsided "
It takes the application of the principles of science to prevent and cure disease. Everthing else is anecdotal and thereby worthless.
"Epidemiology," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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#58771
03/01/2002 7:09 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
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stales, I did read your link, and found it quite informative. Thank you. A couple of criticisms: first it said that "Australia may well be the home of the worlds first people." A few paragraphs later, it said "This made it possible for the ancestors of the people now called Australian Aboriginals to reach Australia from lands to the north." That left me wondering how the first people could have come from somewhere else. I will grant the benefit of the doubt that this was designed to be an overview, and that elucidating details must be given in some other writing. I also wish that people who are in the position of educating would either spell correctly or get a good editor: "As the ice flows of the Ice Age began to melt...". (My bolding.) Maybe it's just me, but if somebody presents their information sloppily, then I tend to rather discount it. Oh--just remembered my other comment: whoever wrote that didn't seem to have cared much about what the females did, or how.
All that aside, however, I did enjoy reading it. I like the evocation of "the land was given long ago in the Dreamtime." The article was good all the way through about giving subsequent information on unusual things mentioned, such as the Dreamtime.
"...the Macassan boats that visited the northern coast each year from Macassar and Celedes to collect trepang" led me on an interesting armchair journey. The only other mention I can recall of Macassar was in old books, which said that people had antimacassars. (Small pieces of cloth, or a doily, draped over the back of a chair so that someone's head would rest against that, and not the upholstery.) So I Atomica'd Macassar, wondering if perhaps it was a place that exported oil for the hair, and found out: that it has a new name, now (Hi, lovely Bingley!), and that one of its products is copra, which gives coconut oil! Thank you!
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#58772
03/01/2002 8:54 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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Yes, there is a place for science.. but sometimes.. i think things get out of hand..
i think now of diptheria.. as i recall, when they (german? austrian?)doctors/hospital first planned a "double blind" study of the effectiveness of diptheria anti toxin (or was it a vacination?)
I am sure it was diptheria.
in any case, one doctor "ruined" the study-- by giving all the children the treatment.. (and they all survived.) since untreated diptheria has something like a 50% (is it higher?) mortality rate.. it was very clear the treatment was effective, even if the "official double blind" study to test the efficacy of treatment was ruined. but since it was din't use ...the application of the principles of science to prevent and cure disease, i guess we will never know if it really works, or if it works by magic.
a good deal of healing is done just by the effect of the "doctors" power! (and there have been many studies to show this!)
until the last year or two, it was common to have actors dress up as doctors to hawk drugs. (Dr. Marcus Welby did more to improve the sales of some pain relief drug then any other spokesperson.. studies showed people who liked the Dr. MW TV show, got more pain relief than people who didn't watch or like it! Bayer (or what ever) asprin was more effective when Dr. Welby said it was "powerful" medicine for pain!
I love science, and i think doctors are highly trainied professionals, but common folk are cured as much by the magic as by the doctor!
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#58773
03/02/2002 12:52 AM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,096 Likes: 2
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common folk are cured as much by the magic as by the doctor
Can't let that go unanswered.
What you suggest is only true sometimes.
When we speak with Latin words, or words that come from earlier times (like "gallop rhythm") the reason is that they have a very precise meaning, not always the same as the Standard English meaning. They also come with very specific implications about what is happening in the body and what might have caused it and what interventions might make a difference one way or the other.
Would you rather the "gallop" had been called by its technical name? There are two kinds, actually, an "S3" and an "S4," meaning a third heart sound and a fourth heart sound, but that doesn't really help very much. (As a specialist I often think half my job is to translate from Latin into English!) Neither one means anything like "the heart beating so fast the patients almost inevitably die of it," and they aren't always "complications of heart surgery," and there _are_ several treatments for one of them, and the other requires no treatment anyway! But that's all compressed into one or two words.
Every field has this phenomenon; it's called jargon. It can be expanded when desired - as when medically sophisticated patients want to know more about what's happening to them and why and what to do about it - but between doctors it's much more efficient the short way.
Physicians don't do magic, and we know it. Maybe 85 percent of sick patients get better just with the passage of time; if they happen to see a doctor just before they improve we're happy to take the credit, but we know full well that the patients would have likely have gotten better anyway. Or if they had seen a chiropractor. Or a grandmother. Or a shaman. Or a voodoo specialist. Or just stayed home in bed. Or even ignored it entirely and gone about their usual routines.
And another ten percent of patients are _not_ going to better, not with the best doctor in the world, or any of those other kinds of healers either.
But then there is the five percent for whom we do make a difference, and that _can_ be shown by science. Those are the ones - not the slightly sick, not the worried well - for whom it really matters what kind of practitioner you see. For the others, we provide reassurance that it's not anything more serious. And yes, many others could do that just as well, and maybe in some cases better.
As long as you're sure you're not one of the needful five percent.
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#58774
03/02/2002 3:42 AM
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Posts: 163
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I've heard of others being sung to death.
Perhaps if one sets Vogon poetry to music this could be accomplished.
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#58775
03/02/2002 3:52 AM
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Posts: 163
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You are correct - bone pointing and "singing" a person to death are mighty primitive.
I wonder if it is any more primitive than praying to help heal someone who is ill. In a general sense the basic mechanics are similar in that the faith of the people involved can have a great impact on the outcome.
In the case of prayer circles, faith that praying will work can buoy the spirits of the ill person, giving them strength and perhaps a belief that they can overcome. What would stop the opposite happening if the victim has faith that he can do naught but die as a result of the bone pointing?
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#58776
03/02/2002 4:29 AM
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Posts: 163
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what saved the man? his belief in what the doctors had said! not medicine, not drugs, but magical words from a powerful doctor. -- but remember, our medicine is scientific, and its the other guys who are witch doctors!
[/rant]
Our medicine is scientific, and generally more advanced, but that in no way means that others are primitive or should be denigrated out of hand. Many of these traditional medicines have been discovered by observation and analysis, which are the basis of "our" science. (If I remember correctly, aspirin (ASA) is found in a plant.)
Unfortunately, sometimes proponents of natural products make outrageous claims that cannot be verified and complain when people (typically governments or bodies like the College of Physicians and Surgeons) have the temerity to ask if there are studies to back up their claims. I was in a health food store looking at a particular supplement. I asked the clerk if there were any side-effects. "Oh no! It's all natural" was the response. My rejoinder, "Rattlesnake venom is also all natural" drew a blank stare.
By the same token, pharmaceutical companies are also guilty of exageration at times.
Last year my father almost died following heart surgery. My mother read to him every day; there was always one of us with him, trying to encourage him and keep that last ember from going out. I know our faith had a positive effect and it buoyed him, but without dialysis, a pig's heart valve, and powerful antibiotics all of the faith in the world would not have saved him.
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#58777
03/02/2002 6:44 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Modern medicine has its place. My Zildish GP was a refreshingly honest kinda cove; he said to me on a number of occasions that (a) he didn't really know what was wrong, but that time would probably cure it, and (b)it would be up to me whether I bothered with analgesics - i.e. he wouldn't prescribe anything unless I really really wanted him to.
Where a good GP comes into his/her own is in spotting the Doc's "five percent" situations. When do the symptoms indicate something serious, as opposed to something transitory? Unfortunately, not a lot of GPs are good at that. Until you present symptoms which are quite gross they just do the modern equivalent of "take two aspirins and call me in the morning", which appears to be "take two amoxyls and don't call me until the ambulance has arrived in future"
However sometimes they do spot it, even if it's already too late. My secretary a couple of career-moves ago was tired and had swollen ankles. Not unusual for a woman in her late fifties, you would have thought. She finally (at the urging of her colleagues) went to her GP, who spent five minutes examining her and then called an ambulance to take her to the oncology unit at the local hospital where she died of leukaemia THREE WEEKS later. Yet she didn't look that sick. The GP just happened to recognise the symptoms.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#58778
03/02/2002 10:21 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
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Thanks for taking the time to read the article Jackie.
I agree with your 'pick up' on the first people thing. What I think the author is saying that these are the first people, but they migrated to what is now Oz from their original starting point. I can see a semantic point in this....
Oh - your typical Ozzie wouldn't know an ice floe from a glacier!! I would've probably made the same mistake!
stales
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#58779
03/02/2002 10:24 AM
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Posts: 866
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Rouspeter
Spot on.....
"Science and health - with the key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy" frexample?
stales
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#58780
03/02/2002 10:25 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
Jackie and Rouspeter for the tag...
Floe and Eddie
Hehehehe
stales
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#58781
03/02/2002 6:50 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
placebo effect
There seems to be some symbolic precedent for this in the Bible...most notably the story of Samson and Delilah. Did Samson become disempowered because Delilah cut his hair, or because he knew Delilah cut his hair? If Delilah had quietly cut his hair while he was sleeping and then wrapped his head in a turban before he awoke, would he have been just as strong as before? Would he have then lost his strength upon unfurling the turban to see his cropped hair? Or was it the fact that Delilah was the one who cut his hair that disempowered him so? Would another hair-cutter of indifferent personage have had the same effect on him? A very simple sounding parable on the surface, until you start scratching a little deeper, eh?
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#58782
03/02/2002 11:58 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I wonder if it is any more primitive than praying to help heal someone who is ill. In a general sense the basic mechanics are similar in that the faith of the people involved can have a great impact on the outcome.
In the case of prayer circles, faith that praying will work can buoy the spirits of the ill person, giving them strength and perhaps a belief that they can overcome. What would stop the opposite happening if the victim has faith that he can do naught but die as a result of the bone pointing?
Excellent point, Rous. Reckon I'll have to revise my thinking. But no matter what, so far, I cannot believe that using psychology can cause someone to die, any more than I believe that prayer alone can keep someone from dying.
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#58783
03/03/2002 12:12 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
re:any more than I believe that prayer alone can keep someone from dying.
Well, curiously enough, a study done by a medical school discoverd that if you pray for some one (or even something!) they do get better.
the study involved bacteria in culture (in those little dishes of agar agar.) the ones that were prayed for, lived longer, even when subject to adverse conditions.. (to cold, to hot, what ever it was they didn't like)
the old saying is Prayer doesn't change things, Prayer changes people, and people change things. is not quite true. pray changes things.. pray for little dishes of bacteria, and they live longer lives, they are better able to with stand adversity. Imagine what it does for people!
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#58784
03/03/2002 12:27 AM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,096 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,096 Likes: 2 |
...a study done by a medical school discovered that if you pray for some one (or even something!) they do get better.Is it possible to identify that study more precisely? I'm skeptical, but I can be swayed by evidence 
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#58785
03/03/2002 1:41 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
member
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member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163 |
Is it possible to identify that study more precisely? I'm skeptical, but I can be swayed by evidence/
Alas, while I remember seeing the item on tv, I don't remember the details. You can be a skeptic, but it could just be the prayercebo effect.
If you happen to read one of the monographs that list prescribing and side-effect information for drugs you will note that most have something like: Side-effects reported in at least 5% percent of study participants where the incidence was at least double that of the control (placebo) group.
It is astounding the number of side-effects associated with placebos. There should be a warning label.
On the other hand, the number of things cured by placebos could lead to a tremendous opportunity. Just imagine: regular stregth placebositin (patent-pending), extra-strength placebositin, cold and flu placebositin, children's chewable placeobostin (how do you do that little trademanrk symbol?), placebositin #3 which of course is only available by presciption.
Darn. I just realised the fatal flaw in my marketing campaign. In order to get Health Canada approval I would have to do double-blind studies, but what could I use for the placebo's placebo? Tylenol?
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#58786
03/03/2002 1:52 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
This all reminds me of the brilliant O.Henry short story, The Last Leaf, where a gravely ill woman believes that she is destined to die when the tree branch against her window loses its last leaf in the Fall. The sight of the last lingering leaf somehow keeps her vitalized until.... (I don't want to give the ending away for folks who have yet to discover this wonderful tome).
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#58787
03/03/2002 3:19 AM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
I've heard anecdotally that a much smaller number of people die in the couple of weeks before a significant date (their birthday, or Xmas) than in the like period after that date -- as if they were "holding on" to reach just one more milestone.
Is that substantiated?
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#58788
03/03/2002 1:07 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,096 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,096 Likes: 2 |
Did you know that for a while doctors wrote an occasional prescription for "Obecalp"? Too many patients knew what Placebo meant.
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