A Controlled Evaluation of Deanol and Benactyzine-Meprobamate

Abstract

WHEN evaluating a new drug an investigator should allow for such factors as suggestibility, the natural course of the illness and the effect of other treatments. This is particularly true in the field of psychiatry, because the subject matter readily lends itself to the influence of subjectivity, bias and the personal element. An uncontrolled drug evaluation can easily foster an erroneous view about the efficacy of a new agent. This was forcefully demonstrated in a recent experiment conducted by the present investigators on the placebo effect in psychiatric drug research.¹ The study dramatically illustrated the tendency of patients, psychiatrists and . . .