Is place medicine? You might argue that it is by citing the tale of Doc Holliday. With his lungs plagued by tuberculosis, he left Georgia to prolong his life in the drier climate of the American Southwest. He lived to be 36. That’s a miracle in an age before antibiotics, isn’t it? Was it place? In fact, he was lucky to live as long as he did. Trained as a dentist, Holliday had two avocations: gambler and gunfighter, the second of which put him by the side of the Earp brothers at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. Is there a more famous gunfight?
Then there was the famous village inside Mammoth Cave. Supposedly, the air of the cave would cure victims of tuberculosis. At least, that’s what Dr. John Croghan thought when he built some housing inside the cave. Initially and temporarily, his patients seemed to improve. Ah! The placebo effect! They moved into their dismal dwellings in expectation of cure. The plants they took with them died. Then five of the patients died in the damp, cool air that was polluted by smoke from cooking fires. Medical experiment over: The mummifying air of the cave that worked so well to preserve the bodies of dead bats, didn’t work to preserve the living as Croghan had surmised it would. That place wasn’t the good medicine it was supposed to be.
But let’s go back to the “initially and temporarily.” Whether or not place has an actual medicinal value, it has, in all our experiences, a placebo effect. Why bother with vacations? Why have favorite rooms with favorite furniture to sit on? Why feel peaceful in churches or in “nature”? Why are there places where the essence of the environment alone is a catalyst for healing? Place might not be a medicine in the scientific sense, but it is an effective placebo.
Where are your favorite placebos?
Then there was the famous village inside Mammoth Cave. Supposedly, the air of the cave would cure victims of tuberculosis. At least, that’s what Dr. John Croghan thought when he built some housing inside the cave. Initially and temporarily, his patients seemed to improve. Ah! The placebo effect! They moved into their dismal dwellings in expectation of cure. The plants they took with them died. Then five of the patients died in the damp, cool air that was polluted by smoke from cooking fires. Medical experiment over: The mummifying air of the cave that worked so well to preserve the bodies of dead bats, didn’t work to preserve the living as Croghan had surmised it would. That place wasn’t the good medicine it was supposed to be.
But let’s go back to the “initially and temporarily.” Whether or not place has an actual medicinal value, it has, in all our experiences, a placebo effect. Why bother with vacations? Why have favorite rooms with favorite furniture to sit on? Why feel peaceful in churches or in “nature”? Why are there places where the essence of the environment alone is a catalyst for healing? Place might not be a medicine in the scientific sense, but it is an effective placebo.
Where are your favorite placebos?
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