Warriors: Explained

03: Could the herbs be placebos?

There aren't any spoilers in this chapter, aside from a few descriptions of herbs and their use. 

Obviously, we know that the herbs used in the Warriors series are not realistic and don't have healing properties in real life. And as a future chapter will state, a lot of the herbs aren't even native to where the books supposedly takes place, but we're not going to discuss the accuracy of the Warriors series. [0]

Instead, this chapter's going to be about placebos and the placebo effect.

Now, you've probably heard about placebos before. By definition, a placebo is: [1] 

"a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.a substance having no pharmacological effect but administered as a control in testing experimentally or clinically the efficacy of a biologically active preparation."

Let's put this in easier-to-understand terminology. Basically, a placebo is a substance that doesn't really change how your body functions—for example, a sugar pill or water—that is given in place of an actual drug. In drug trials, they use placebos to test whether or not a drug is effective. Half of the patients get the real drug, and the other half get a placebo, but neither groups know which one they received. If the experimental group (with the real drug) reports a better outcome, then the drug is more likely to be approved. [2]

Of course, giving patients placebos is sometimes considered morally wrong. If someone is sick and really suffering, and they end up in the control group, they could be receiving a drug that works, but they are only getting a useless substance. [3]

Doctors can also give prescribe to their patients, but this is often unlawful. Sometimes, your doctor might ask you to allow them to prescribe placebos. Other times, they're given without any consent.

Now let's take a step back and look at the placebo effect. This effect is defined as being related to medical treatment [5], but there are other observable cases of similar phenomena happening. Have you ever been told that a certain brand is supposed to taste better than the generic kind before trying both? In a blind taste test, people were unable to distinguish a name cola brand from the generic kind [6], but most people would say that they like name brands better (which is obvious considering the fact that it's a generic brand versus a name brand). 

Herbal remedies have been used throughout time. The first recorded use of herbs was in Mesopotamia (Sumer, if you remember studying that in school). They had clay tablets that listed medical plants, including myrrh and opium (which, before you ask, is the plant used to produce opiates, including heroin, morphine, and many types of pain pills). In ancient Egypt, herbs were used to treat symptoms, not diseases, and ancient Indian documents listed remedies from herbal, mineral, and animal-derived sources. [7]

But placebo remedies have been around since about the 1500s, though it's very possible their use could have begun a lot earlier. Placebos were very popular in the 1800s, which is when the idea of doctors having the job of also consoling their patients popped up. [8]

In humans, the placebo effect has variants. It has been shown to be more effective with colored pills rather than white pills, larger pills compared to smaller ones, injection being more powerful than pills, and surgery being more powerful than injections. [9 and again, 5]. 

Now, assuming that all herbs are placebos, how could medicine cats either keep this secret or be completely unaware of the placebos they're giving? I think, by the Erins' intentions, that they wouldn't actually use the placebos in the books. No offense to them (I think they're great writers with great ideas!), but the Erins probably wouldn't think that far about something as seemingly simple as herbs.

But, this is 'could the herbs be placebos' not 'are the herbs placebos', so we're just going to go with our hypothetical situation.

Every time a cat is sick, they're given a herb. And if you read the scenes in which medicine cats are giving herbs to cats, the medicine cats actually say what the herb is supposed to do a lot. [0] This is linked back to the placebo effect—if they're expecting this healing property to happen, then it might, based on psychological effects! 

Some of the herbs have valid roots—for example, honey is given to cats who have inhaled smoke or cats who have a sore throat. Honey is often used as a home remedy for these purposes. That's not the topic of this chapter, though, so I'll move on and quit getting off-topic. [0]

Perhaps the most powerful herb is catmint. I believe catmint is supposed to be catnip, despite there actually being a wild plant called catmint. This theory is pretty much a given—catmint is described as smelling really good, and it only grows in Twoleg gardens. Catmint heals the deadly disease 'greencough' and can also treat 'whitecough', the predecessor of greencough. Blackcough was a typo, so we're not even going to discuss that. [0]

In this case, I'm going to go by saying that the placebo of catmint would treat the actual coughing of greencough. Placebos treat coughs quite effectively, according to the many clinical trials [9]. However, greencough is more than just a cough—you wouldn't die from just a cough. Therefore, I'm coming to the conclusion that catmint isn't just a placebo here.

It is proven that the placebo effect is more effective on children compared to adults [10]. There really isn't this boundary in the warriors world—herbs work on older and younger cats pretty much equally, with the given that kits would have weaker immune systems and die more easily (the same applying to elders). 

In the many cases of placebos, there's a few main ones that placebos are often used to treat. These include pain, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, food allergies, anxiety, acne, and panic disorders, along with many others. Of the list I'm looking at [5], the following have herbs used to treat them in the Warriors world: cough, headache, itch, migraines, nausea, and pain. 

There are also herbs in the Warriors used to treat colds, infections, and cracked pads, along with many others [0]. 

The most interesting placebo I read about was relating to pain, in a phenomenon called placebo analgesia. The first way this works in a human brain is like this - endorphins are released in the form of natural painkillers. The second way is related to how the human brain perceives the pain, which the placebo makes them "rethink" this in a way. 

I'm sure that some of the herbs relating to pain in the Warriors series could have this first effect on the cats' brains, and the second effect could apply as well.

Overall, I'm going to have to sum this up—there are a lot of ways for the placebo effect to work here, and for the placebo effect to not work here. 

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/placebo
[2] https://www.drugs.com/article/placebo-effect.html
[3] http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2013/06/07/medethics-2012-101314
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-placebo-debate-is-it-unethical-to-prescribe-them-to-patients/250161/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo
[6] http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/North-American-Journal-Psychology/256864601.html
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_herbalism
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_in_history
[9] http://www.mdedge.com/currentpsychiatry/article/64401/most-powerful-placebo-not-pill
[9.5] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094553902903640?via%3Dihub
[10] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2504483/
[11] https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/clinical-trials/placebo-effect.html
[0] Rio's general recollection of the Warriors series + other things too.

Whoops, sorry if this chapter is confusing to read. I'm a bit scatter-brained today and hoping all over the place ^^ if you have any questions, leave them below and I'll try to answer them.