I  do  not  deny  that  the  patients  experience  associated  sen-
sations, that  they  see  a  red  A  and  a  yellow  U;  but  I  have  no


142  PSYCHIC  TREATMENT

reason  to  see  in  this  any  physiological  reverberation,  such  as  the
stimulation  of  one  sense  leading  to  the  functioning  of  another.
It  is  probably  by  the  psychic  way,  by  vague  reminiscences  and
association  of  ideas  that  these  syntheses  are  established.  More-
over, one  only  sees  them  in  certain  subjects  preoccupied  with
psycho-physiological  problems,  such  as  neurotic  artists,  who
cultivate  their  temperament  with  the  greatest  care,  or  in  very
young  people,  who  are  always  eminently  suggestible.
The  role  of  the  idea  appears  very  distinctly  when  we  come
to  look  at  the  influence  of  foods.  Without  doubt  what  we  eat
has  an  undeniable  action  upon  our  body.  I  would  take  very
good  care  not  to  lay  everything  to  the  imagination;  and
I  even  think  that  we  hardly  give  credit  enough  to  this  action
of  the  alimentary  regime,  especially  where  it  is  a  question  of
long-continued  habit.  What  one  does  every  day  in  the  year  is
found  multiplied  as  a  total  at  the  end  of  the  year.
Nevertheless,  if  one  leaves  out  of  the  question  the  more  or
less  toxic  substances,  alcohol,  tea,  coffee,  and  tobacco,  the  abuse
of  which  would  lead  to  disorders,  if  one  excepts  certain  foods
recognized  by  everybody  as  being  difficult  to  digest,  our  phy-
sical well-being  seems  to  depend  very  little  upon  alimentation.
