Placebo is so pervasive in medicine that it has been described as the one common element in all medical treatments in all of medical history. For common therapies that do not have large obvious effects, some researchers have gone so far as to view all therapy as placebo.

Yet no agreement has been reached on what placebo is, what effects it has or whether it even exists. The concept of placebo continues to perplex medical professionals, historians and philosophers.

What if we stop saying placebo?

Putting medical research and clinical practice on a placebo-free, dichotomy-reduced diet, Dr...