=Physical Idiosyncrasies.= Most of our false fears on food subjects come from some tradition—­either a social tradition or a little private, pet tradition of one’s own.  Some one once was ill after eating strawberries and cream.  What more natural than to look back to those little curdles in the dish and to start the tradition that such mixtures are dangerous?  The worst of it is that the taboo habit is very likely to grow.  One after another, innocent foods are thrown out until one wonders what is left.  A patient of mine, Mr. G., told me that he had a short time before gone to a physician with a tale of woe about his sour stomach.  “What are you eating?” asked the doctor.  “Bran crackers and prunes.”  “Then,” said the learned doctor, “you will have to cut out the prunes!” Needless to say, this man ate everything at my table, and flourished accordingly.

There may be such a thing as physical idiosyncrasies for certain foods.  I have often heard of them, but I have never seen one.  I have often challenged my patients to show me some of the “spells” which they say invariably follow the eating of certain foods, but I have almost never been given an exhibition.  The man who couldn’t eat eggs did throw up once, but he couldn’t do it a second time.  Many people have threatened to break out with hives after strawberries.  One woman triumphantly brought me what looked like a nice eruption, but which proved to be the after-results of a hungry flea!  After that she ate strawberries,—­without the flea and without the hives.

=Not Miracles but Ideas.= Conversions on food subjects are so common at my table that I should have difficulty in remembering the individual stories.  Scores of them run together in my mind and make a sort of composite narrative something like this:  “Oh, no, thank you, I don’t eat this.  You really must excuse me.  I have tried many times and it is invariably disastrous.”  Then a reluctant yielding and a day or two later some talk about miracles.  “It really is wonderful.  I don’t understand,” etc.  Experiences like these only go to show the power of the subconscious mind, both in building up wrong habit-reactions and in quickly substituting healthy ones, once the false idea is removed.

Among my stomach-patients there were two men, brothers-in-law, immigrants from the Austrian Tyrol, and now resident in one of the cow-boy states.  Leonardo spoke little English, and though Giovanni understood a very little, he spoke only Italian.

Several years before I knew them, Giovanni had developed a severe case of stomach trouble and had finally gone to a medical center for operation.  The disturbance, however, was not relieved by the operation and before long his brother-in-law fell into the same kind of trouble.  For several years the two had spent much of their time dieting, vomiting, and worrying over their sour stomachs.  Giovanni finally became so ill that his sick-benefit society had actually assessed