During World War II, soldiers wounded on the battlefield were in a great amount of pain. The medical staff gave them morphine, a painkiller that is still used today. At some point the morphine began to run out, and soldiers were left writhing in pain. There seemed to be no way of helping them—but then one of the nurses had a brilliant idea: she collected the empty morphine syringes, filled them with water, and injected the wounded soldiers. Amazingly, they soon felt less pain!
After the war, one of the doctors who had seen what the brilliant nurse did began to study the subject of placebos. He made some spectacular discoveries. It turns out that patients suffering from some diseases actually get better after receiving a placebo. Pain is one problem that responds very well to placebos. Like a Band-Aid on a child's injury, placebos can really ease pain, even pain after surgery. Parkinson's disease patients, who suffer from uncontrollable movements, improve greatly when they get placebo pills. Asthmatic and allergic people often respond very well to sugar pills or to inhalers that do not contain any active medicine.

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Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00060