Interestingly, 1785 was also the year the term placebo appeared for the first time in a medical dictionary. It was the expanded second edition of George Motherby's New Medical Dictionary, and the word, to Motherby, meant"a common place method or medicine." Though that is not particularly damning at first glance, it was most likely a negative label, meaning the medicine was trivial, or unimpressive, because the word already had a negative connotation. Placebo, which means"I will please," had come to signify insincerity, flattery, and profiteering since medieval times, when greedy churchmen
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