ACTION OF PSYCHIC INFLUENCES 5 



By a long series of painstaking and carefully conducted 

 investigations, the majority of which, were done in the Insti- 

 tute of St. Petersburg and in the laboratory of A. Bickel in 

 Berlin, the excito-secretory influence exerted upon the gas- 

 tric secretion by a great variety of physiological and patho- 

 logical factors has been determined, including foodstuffs, 

 condiments, mineral waters, medicinal substances, and the 

 like. 4 These studies have been very materially supplemented 

 by observations upon human beings with gastric fistulas, 5 in 

 whom occasionally the same conditions have existed as obtain 

 in the experimental "mock meal" procedures. For ex- 

 ample, in the case of a girl who had had a gastric fistula 

 produced after a corrosive lesion of the oesophagus, an 

 cesophagotomy was later performed, and by means of a rub- 

 ber tube direct communication established between the end 

 of the upper cesophageal segment and the gastric fistula. 

 Well-masticated morsels were transmitted with considerable 

 force by the muscles of the gullet along this artificial 

 oesophagus into the stomach ; while by removal of the com- 

 municating tube the precise arrangement of a regular 

 " mock-meal " experiment was obtained. 



Action of Psychic Influences. In endeavoring to come to 

 some definite understanding from the various studies upon 

 animals and human beings as to the factors by which the 

 secretion of the gastric juice is most actively affected, we can- 

 not fail to recognize the dominating agency of psychic influ- 

 ence. We know to-day that under appropriate conditions the 

 mere idea of a toothsome meal, and to a greater degree the 

 actual mastication of such food, not only "make the mouth 

 water " but also make the juices of the stomach flow. An as- 

 sociative gastric-juice production has been clearly proved to 



4 Literature: O. Cohnheim, NagePs Handb. d. Physiol., 2, 534-542, 1907. 

 A. Bickel, Handb. d. Biochemie, 3', 66-70, 1910. 



Observations of F. A. Hornborg, F. Umber, H. Bogen, A. Bickel, Sasaki, 

 H. Kaznelson, Pfliiger's Archiv., 118, 327, 1907; R. S. Lavenson, Arch. Int. Med., 

 4, 271, 1909; Cf. O. Cohnheim, Die Physiologic d. Verd. u. Ernahrung, p. 57, 

 1908. 



