Apparently the old maxim of the physicist of past centuries has an application here. "Nature abhors a vacuum" and as the stomach and intestines are not as full as they ought to be, nor given as much work to do as they should have, nature proceeds to occupy them with gas which finds its way in from the very vascular gastrointestinal walls. This is of course an explanation that would not have been popular a few years ago when the chemistry of digestion seemed so extremely important, but in recent years, medical science has brought us back rather to the physics of digestion, and I think that most physicians who have seen many functional nervous patients would now agree with these suggestions as to the origin of gaseous disturbance in the gastrointestinal tract in a great many of these cases. Besides the physical symptoms, there are a whole series of psychic or psycho-neurotic symptoms, the basis of which undoubtedly lies in the condition of underweight as a consequence of undereating. Over and over again I have seen the feeling of inability to do things which had come over men, and {157} particularly women, disappear by adding to and regulating the diet until an increase in weight came. Extreme tiredness is a frequent symptom in those under weight, and this often leads to their having no recreation after their work because they have not enough energy for it; as every human being needs diversion, a vicious circle of influence which adds to their nervous tired condition is formed. I have seen in so many cases the eating of a good breakfast and a good lunch supply working people with the energy hitherto lacking that enabled them to go out of an evening to the theater or to entertainments of one kind or another, that it has become a routine practice to treat these people by adding to their dietary unless there are direct contra-indications. Dreads are much more common among people who are underweight than among those who eat enough to keep themselves in proper physical condition. I have had a series of cases, unfortunately only a small one in number, in which the craving for alcoholic liquor disappeared before an increase in diet and a gain in weight. I shall never forget the first case in which this happened. The patient was a man of nearly sixty years of age who held a {158} rather important political office in a small neighboring town. He was on the point of losing it because periodical sprees were becoming more frequent and it was impossible for him to maintain his position. He was over six feet in height and he weighed less than a hundred and fifty pounds. I had tried to get him to gain in weight by advice and suggestion without avail. Finally, I had to make a last effort to use whatever influence I had to save his political position for him, and then I succeeded in making him understand that he would have to do as I told him in the matter of eating, or else I would have nothing more to do with him.