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A Quantitative Study of Bias

Henry K. Beecher, M.D.

JAMA. 1961;176(13):1102-1107.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

BIAS IN CONNECTION with a given procedure on the part of the physician, or the patient, is a complex and often misleading factor in the treatment of disease. Bias has many components, but it is nevertheless possible to separate and examine one of its powerful determinants, the placebo effect.^1-3 Specific attention could be directed to various areas in medicine; I have chosen to look into the matter as it concerns surgery. Surgery offers admirable possibilities for such study.

Wolf² defines a placebo effect as "... any effect attributable to a pill, potion, or procedure, but not to its pharmacodynamic or specific properties." There is the possibility, then, that the surgeon or a surgical procedure can exert a placebo effect. In short, the problem is to investigate (1) the existence, nature, and extent of the placebo effect in surgery, and (2) the possibility that the placebo effect of the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Boston

From the Anaesthia Laboratory of the Harvard Medical School at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Footnotes
This paper was presented at the celebration honoring the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Jan. 31, 1961.

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