Placebo

Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 8: Peasant to Eoumelia, p. 212

Placebo (Lat., 'I will please'), in the Roman Catholic service of vespers for the dead the name of the first antiphon, which begins with the word. In medicine it is an epithet applied to a remedy intended to humour or gratify a patient rather than to exercise any curative effect.

Source scan(s): p. 0221