A homeopathic origin for placebo controls: 'An invaluable gift of god'

The acknowledged early adoption of placebo controls in drug trials by homeo paths is currently thought to have been derived from prior external attempt s to discredit the system. This claim is reexamined in the light of a compr ehensive literature search for 29th-century homeopathic therapeutic trials and provings using placebo. Single blind placebo controls, still used today , are shown to have originated independently, within homeopathy's own disci plinary matrix before the first external evaluations. They are the most lik ely source for later placebo-controlled crossover and parallel group experi ments by homeopaths.