This doesn't contain the details that would interest me. My understanding is modern surgery routinely involves significant antibiotics to prevent serious infec

This doesn't contain the details that would interest me. My understanding is modern surgery routinely involves significant antibiotics to prevent serious infection during the operation. If that's followed with both "sham" surgeries and real surgeries, then it points to the possibility that the strong antibiotics are more important in some cases than the procedure. There may be other medically significant details of sham surgeries that we overlook as not therapeutic. Many diagnostic exams involve not eating for x hours beforehand. Surgeries also can involve restrictions on diet during recovery or exposure to drugs like anesthesia that are given without intent to be therapeutic per se. You can't really rule out the possibility that those types of things are therapeutically significant but overlooked because they are done to be curative.