It is noteworthy that in both the favorable and unfavorable results of the emotional excitement illustrated in Bickel and Sasaki’s dog the effects persisted long after the removal of the exciting condition. This fact, in its favorable aspect, Bickel[8] was able to confirm in a girl with esophageal and gastric fistulas; the gastric secretion long outlasted the period of eating, although no food entered the stomach. The influences unfavorable to digestion, however, are stronger than those which promote it. And evidently, if the digestive process, because of emotional disturbance, is for some time inhibited, the swallowing of food which must lie stagnant in the stomach is a most irrational procedure. If a child has experienced an outburst of passion, it is well not to urge the taking of nourishment soon afterwards. Macbeth’s advice that “good digestion wait on appetite and health on both,” is now well-founded physiology. Other digestive glands than the salivary and the gastric may be checked in emotional excitement. Recently Oechsler[9] has reported that in such psychic disturbances as were shown by Bickel and Sasaki to be accompanied by suppressed secretion of the gastric juice, the secretion of pancreatic juice may be stopped, and the flow of bile definitely checked. All the means of bringing about chemical changes in the food may be thus temporarily abolished. Emotions Favorable and Unfavorable to the Contractions of the Stomach and Intestines The secretions of the digestive glands and the chemical changes wrought by them are of little worth unless the food is carried onward through the alimentary canal into fresh regions of digestion and is thoroughly exposed to the intestinal wall for absorption. In studying these mechanical aspects of digestion I was led to infer[10] that just as there is a psychic secretion, so likewise there is probably a “psychic tone” or “psychic contraction” of the gastro-intestinal muscles as a result of taking food. For if the vagus nerve supply to the stomach is cut immediately _before_ an animal takes food, the usual contractions of the gastric wall, as seen by the Röntgen rays, do not occur; but if these nerves are cut _after_ food has been eaten with relish, the contractions which have started continue without cessation. The nerves in both conditions were severed under anesthesia, so that no element of pain entered into the experiments. In the absence of hunger, which in itself provides a contracted stomach,[11] the pleasurable taking of food may, therefore, be a primary condition for the appearance of natural contractions of the gastro-intestinal canal.