310 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
particles that dance unceasingly in the mazes of 
our colloidal substratum, then the question is pre- 
judged. But let us rid ourselves of the mechanistic 
superstition and give Professor Dearborn fair play. 
We have our little jokes about eupeptic happiness, 
but our successors will smile at those who laughed 
at one of our author’s designations, “ Psychologist 
and Physiologist to the Forsyth Dental Infirmary 
for Children, Boston.” 
The first step in the argument is that when our 
joyous index is high our digestion is good. As Dr. 
Saleeby has put it, freedom from care has nutritive 
value. As was said of old time, “ He that is of a 
merry heart hath a continual feast,” and “ A merry 
heart is the life of the flesh.” Now, what the 
researches of Pavlov, Cannon, Carlson, Crile, and 
others have done is to demonstrate experimentally 
that pleasant emotions favor the secretion of the 
digestive juices, the rhythmic movements of the 
food-canal, and the absorption of the aliment. 
Contrariwise, unpleasant emotional disturbance and 
worry of all sorts can be proved to have a retarda- 
tive influence on the digestive processes. 
When the hungry man sees the well-laid table his 
mouth waters, but every one knows that a memory 
or an anticipation will also serve to move at least 
the first link in the digestive chain. “It is now 
well known,’ says Dearborn, “that no sense- 
experience is too remote from the innervations 
of digestion to be taken into its associations, and 
serve as a stimulus of digestive movements and 
