Hospitals in Switzerland use an old and unusual technique during operations to stop patients from bleeding. It is a prayer known as “The Secret”, a type of medieval incantation aimed at blood control, especially during heart surgery. Fortunately, modern technology allows the use of epinephrine, clotting drugs, and even Band-Aids for the same purpose, along with spiritual exertion.
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Some intrepid scientists only recently decided to study the effectiveness of secret prayer, perhaps because they already imagined the results of the tests. The results can be curious after all, isn’t it? “The Secret” comes from a magical medicinal tradition, a holdover from the practices of monks when healing efforts were simple and rudimentary.
Priests were commonly the physicians of their time, and they based one of Jesus’ miracles from the synoptic gospels on practice—specifically, the event where he heals a bleeding woman. The knowledge was passed on from one “Secret Maker” to the other, considered a healing formula or prayer that, supposedly, would mobilize superior forces to act in the patient’s recovery.
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Amazing results… or not
For the authors of the study, it was a surprise to discover that this particular healer is still widely used in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is even considered a UNESCO intangible heritage.
To test its effectiveness, the results of 200 patients who underwent invasive coronary surgeries in the country were compared: 76% of them believed that “The Secret” would protect them from excessive bleeding, and even asked the surgeon to perform it. This is perhaps the most surprising part of the research.
Half of those operated on received normal care for every patient, while the other half received the same care, but with “The Secret” being added to the procedures. The bleeding scale developed by the Consortium for Academic Research on Bleeding (CPAS) was used to measure the blood loss of each patient, ranging from 1 to 5, in ascending order.
As you can already imagine, practice did not show changes in bleeding during operations, and the groups had more or less identical results. Among the prayer recipients, 72% had no bleeding, while 16% were on CPAS scale 1, and 12% on scale 2. As for those who only received common care, 73% did not bleed, 14% were on scale 1 and 13 % on scale 2. None of them had high bleeding rates, ie scale 3 or above.
placebo and stress
Most participants believed that “The Secret” would be beneficial, but that it would not affect bleeding. According to the scientists, although even patients know that the practice has no importance for cardiology, it serves as a popular remedy to alleviate the anxiety of the superstitious. It is neuropsychological conditioning, a placebo like any belief or biological feedback technique.
The study didn’t look at the placebo aspect of medieval prayer and its effect on patients, but they hypothesized that it might actually help relieve stress, which might actually help improve clinical outcomes and the well-being of some patients, depending on of his superstitiousness. It is important, however, to be aware that it will not stop bleeding.
Read the article on Canaltech.
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