Recent studies of the rôle of taste in the economy of the organism show very decidedly that such an additional function, and a very important one, must be recognized. These investigations have revealed the fact that the pleasurable taste of food (along with its agreeable odor and appearance) is responsible for the initiation of the first stages of the process of digestion. Further, they have shown that disagreeable tastes and odors (along with pain, fear, and other emotional excitement) may effectually retard or even completely inhibit these very important processes. Not only does the mouth “water” at the smell, or sight, or thought, of delicious morsels, but the stomach itself responds, in an anticipatory fashion, to the taste of agreeable substances placed in the mouth. That “good digestion waits on appetite” is a physiological fact, as well as an ancient proverb. In the middle of the last century two observers in Leipsic reported the pouring out of gastric juice at the mere sight or smell of a favorite food in the case of “a hungry dog which had a fistulous opening through the body wall into the stomach.” More recently it has been experimentally shown that similar flow of gastric juice follows upon the tasting of agreeable food, even if the food itself is not allowed to reach the stomach. So relevant are these findings to the point we are now considering that the following summary, by Cannon, of the work of Pavlow may well be quoted in detail: _Experimental Evidences_ “The feelings or affective states favorable to the digestive functions have been studied fruitfully by Pavlow, of Petrograd, through ingenious experiments on dogs. By the use of careful surgical methods he was able to make a side pouch of a part of the stomach, the cavity of which was wholly separate from the main cavity in which the food was received. This pouch was supplied in a normal manner with nerves and blood vessels, and, as it opened to the surface of the body, the amount and character of the gastric juice secreted by it under various conditions could be accurately determined. Secretion by that part of the stomach wall which was included in the pouch was representative of the secreting activities of the entire stomach. The arrangement was particularly advantageous in providing the gastric juice unmixed with food. In some of the animals thus operated upon an opening was also made in the esophagus, so that when the food was swallowed it did not pass to the stomach, but dropped out on the way. All the pleasures of eating were thus experienced, and there was no necessity of stopping because of a sense of fullness. This process was called ‘sham feeding.’ The well-being of these animals was carefully attended to; they lived the normal life of dogs, and in the course of months and years became the pets of the laboratory.