A panacea is a cure-all. Patent medicines were once sold without prescription in America, many of them claiming that they could be used to cure almost anything. Panacea is used in a figurative sense as well as a literal or physical sense--as in the idea that foreign trade is the panacea for all of America's problems, for example.
A placebo is a sugar pill. Doctors sometimes gave placebos to hypochondriacs. The pills made them feel better, even though there was nothing in them. Placebos sometimes work even when people are ill or in pain. This is called the placebo effect--we think we feel better because we think we are taking medicine.
A magic bullet, to modern medical science, means a specific cure for a specific disease--the one that researchers hope they will someday find for cancer, for instance. Some researchers believe they may one day find a drug, or a combination of drugs, that would wipe out this disease. That would be the magic bullet.
A silver bullet, of course, is the only way to kill a werewolf.
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