Books

THE PLACEBO EFFECT: An Interdisciplinary Exploration edited by Anne Harrington is a collection of essays from various doctors on whether placebos really have an effect on patients who take them, why, and if so, what do we do about it. The views cross the spectrum here (including discussions of “nocebos,” that make things worse) but the general tone is conservative optimism: Nobody writing anticipates placebos curing cancer (and see the idea of thinking yourself well as just putting another stressor on the patient) but there’s evidence they can reduce pain and tone down stress issues such as high blood-pressure. Part of it is a conditioned response (you take medicine, you expect to get better) but a complicated one as it involves not only the drug but the atmosphere of the hospital and having the doctor reassure you you’re getting better (this leads at one point to a debate on how you make a placebo work when the patient is supposed to know exactly what you’re giving him). Dry, but interesting.
THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH by Philip K. Dick has the manufacturer of the mindscape-generating drug Can-D—which Earth’s miserable Martian colonists rely on for relief from their lives—discover that rival magnate Eldritch has returned from another solar system with Chew-Z, a drug which allows for a far weirder and more mystical experience. Well if you overlook the side effects such as slipping in time and meeting God. This is a mixed (but mostly good bag)—the kind of weird psychedelic story that Dick could make fascinating, but the mysticism gets a bit forced at the end. Thumbs up, though.
Shopping for tea at a Chapel Hill store, I also picked up TEA: The Drink That Changed the World by Laura C. Martin. This is a good history that chronicles tea’s story from the days when it was a bitter drink mostly used as a stimulant (monks enjoyed it because it kept them awake during medidation) through the development of the fermentation process that made tea taste good and then on through its explosion into the West. Martin covers the undeniable downside of tea (opium wars and Chinese peasants having to skimp on food crops to grow the emperor’s tribute tea), the alphabet soup of tea classes such as OP and FTGFOP (which uses the same quality leaves as Orange Pekoe but only the tips) and the steady improvements in tea bags in recent years (much more flavor). Recommended if you like the subject.