[Placebo and placebo effect].

The word placebo appeared for the first time in an English medical dictionary in 1785. In French, it appeared much latter in 1958. This word defines an experimental tool used for rigourous evaluation of a specific effect of pharmacological treatment and the non specific effect of any therapy. The placebo effect is the strictly psychological or psychophysiological effect of a placebo. The two principal components of placebo effect as a pain killer, which has been extensively studied in this field, are positive expectancies of both the patient and the physician. Although the mechanisms of action of placebo effect are not well understood, results of several recent works are particularly interesting.