The Distillations crew takes a break every August to regroup and plan for the next season’s shows. So instead of new material, we pull together our favorite segments from episodes past. This one includes a few of my personal favorites: James Voelkel’s essay on Palmer the Poisoner from our Forensics show, Gigi Naglak on how maggots are used to treat infections from our Gross Out episode. And finally, Josh Kurz’s feature on how placebos manage to fool the brain.