is
called "anorexia nervosa." A boy of nineteen was brought to the
Out-patient Department of Guy's Hospital suffering from this
complaint. He was little more than a skeleton, unable to stand, hardly
able to sit, and weighing only four and a half stones. His mother,
who came with him, stated that he had always been nervous, and that
lately, after receiving a call to join the army as a recruit, his
appetite, which had for some time been capricious, had completely
disappeared. In spite of coaxing he resolutely refused all food, or
took it only in the tiniest morsels, although at the same time it was
thought that he sometimes took food "on the sly." A careful
examination showed absolutely no sign of bodily disease. He was
admitted to a ward for treatment by hypnotic suggestion, but before
this could be begun he endeavoured to commit suicide by setting fire
to his bed.

A girl of twenty-four years of age had become almost equally
emaciated. Constant vomiting had persisted for many years and had
defied many attempts at cure. It had even been proposed to perform the
operation of gastro-enterostomy in the belief that some organic
disease existed. In suitable surroundings and with the energetic
support of a good nurse, who spent much time and care in restoring her
balance of mind, the vomiting ceased, and she gained over two stones
in weight. Work was found for her in some occupation connected with
the War, and she left the Nursing Home to undertake this, bearing with
her four pounds which she had abstracted from the purse of another
patient.

Those who have not opportunities of observing how all-powerful is the
effect of the mind upon the body, and especially perhaps upon the
process of digestion, may find it hard to believe that these
distressing symptoms and profound changes in the aspect and nutrition
of the patients were due entirely to mental causes and were symptoms
in accord with the attempted suicide or the theft of the money. In
nervous little children we shall not often find such complex actions
as suicide or theft, although they do occur, but combined with other
evidence of nervousness we shall meet commonly enough with a
persistent setting aside of appetite and refusal of food and with
continuous and habitual vomiting, from nervous causes.

The experiments of Pawlow and others have explained the dependence of
digestion upon mental states. They show that even before the food is
taken into the mouth, while the m