They asked Jellinek, then at Yale, to test whether the absence of that particular chemical would affect the drug’s efficacy in any way. Jellinek set up a complex trial – with 199 subjects, divided randomly into four test groups – involving various permutations of the three drug constituents, with a placebo as a scientific control. Each group took a test remedy for two weeks at a time. The trial lasted eight weeks, by the end of which each group had taken each of the test drugs, albeit in a different sequence. Over the entire population of 199 subjects, 120 of the subjects (~60%) responded to the placebo, and 79 did not. The trial also demonstrated that the chemical in question significantly contributed to the remedy's efficacy.