Like the peristaltic waves in the stomach, the peristalsis and the kneading movements (segmentation) in the small intestine, and the reversed peristalsis in the large intestine all cease whenever the observed animal shows signs of emotional excitement. There is no doubt that just as the secretory activity of the stomach is affected in a similar fashion in man and in lower animals, so likewise gastric and intestinal peristaltic waves are stopped in man as they are stopped in lower animals, by worry and anxiety and the stronger affective states. The conditions of mental discord may thus give rise to a sense of gastric inertia. For example, a patient described by Müller[16] testified that anxiety was always accompanied by a feeling of weight, as if the food remained in the stomach. Every addition of food caused an increase of the trouble. Strong emotional states in this instance led almost always to gastric distress, which persisted, according to the grade and the duration of the psychic disturbance, between a half-hour and several days. The patient was not hysterical or neurasthenic, but was a very sensitive woman deeply affected by moods. The feeling of heaviness in the stomach, mentioned in the foregoing case, is not uncommonly complained of by nervous persons, and may be due to stagnation of the contents. That such stagnation occurs is shown by the following instance. A refined and sensitive woman, who had had digestive difficulties, came with her husband to Boston to be examined. They went to a hotel for the night. The next morning the woman appeared at the consultant’s office an hour after having eaten a test meal. An examination of the gastric contents revealed no free acid, no digestion of the test breakfast, and the presence of a considerable amount of the supper of the previous evening. The explanation of this stagnation of the food in the stomach came from the family doctor, who reported that the husband had made the visit to the city an occasion for becoming uncontrollably drunk, and that he had by his escapades given his wife a night of turbulent anxiety. The second morning, after the woman had had a good rest, the gastric contents were again examined; the proper acidity was found, and the test breakfast had been normally digested and discharged. These cases are merely illustrative and doubtless can be many times duplicated in the experience of any physician concerned largely with digestive disorders. Indeed, the opinion has been expressed that a great majority of the cases of gastric indigestion that come for treatment are functional in character and of nervous origin. It is the emotional element that seems most characteristic of these cases. To so great an extent is this true that Rosenbach has suggested that as a term to characterize the cause of the disturbances, “emotional” dyspepsia is better than “nervous” dyspepsia.[17] The Disturbing Effect of Pain on Digestion