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> Whether he was asleep or awake, Tom's stomach usually had a ten-to 30-minute spell of vigorous contractions every three hours or so. (Unless there was something inside, the stomach walls touched each other.) Between times, contractions were rare, slow and gentle. The stomach could be made to start work in the midst of a rest period by feeding it solids (e.g., a bouillon cube); it could be made to relax in the middle of work by feeding it liquids. > Tom's stomach secreted juice continuously, about 8 to 15 cc. an hour even while resting. (This contradicts a conclusion William Beaumont drew in 1833 from his famous experiments on Alexis St. Martin.)
> When Tom was frightened both his face and his stomach lining turned pale. When Tom was depressed, his stomach lining, which usually reddened and increased its secretion of acid after a dose of beef bouillon, hardly responded at all to such feeding. When Tom got mad, his face got red and so did his stomach. (This happened when an officious clinic secretary angered him.) More than any other emotion, anxiety increased the amount of blood in the stomach membrane and the amount of acid secretion. When Tom was anxious (e.g., worry about his stepdaughter's illness and death), he had diarrhea and no appetite, and he was wakened in the night by acid juices escaping from his stomach. Though Tom did not want food when he was worried, the doctors found that, if he ate, his digestion rate was faster than normal. Hence they conclude that not the stomach, but the emotions determine appetite. They write: "What is known about the length of time food remains in the stomach must be re-evaluated in the light of the profound alterations which accompany altered emotional states."
> Unusually vigorous stomach contractions caused Tom to suffer cramping "hunger" pains. Pinches and pricking and electric shocks sufficient to cause intense pain to a man's skin had no effect on Tom's gastric mucosa. But when a spot on his stomach lining was stripped of its protecting mucus and sprinkled with mustard, it became very sensitive. Strong pressure with a glass rod or from a balloon inflated in his stomach to 1,500 cc. gave Tom a stomachache.
> The doctors found out some new things about ulcers by producing a small ulcer on a bit of exposed stomach membrane. Mucus protects healthy stomach walls from being digested by their own juices, but this area did not have much mucus, and an ulcer developed when the doctors merely dropped gastric juice on it. The spot bled and grew for four days. Meanwhile the whole stomach lining became inflamed and produced more gastric juice than before. The doctors found "a vicious cycle is set up [by stomach ulcers], since the acid gastric juice in contact with a denuded region induces further acid secretion." The doctors healed the ulcer in three days by bandaging it with a petrolatum poultice. Atropine, which is often given to soothe ulcer sufferers, cut down Tom's mucus secretion. Therefore the doctors believe atropine should not be generally used for ulcers (except occasionally as a sedative), because the drug reduces the very protection the stomach most needs. Proper ulcer treatment, Wolf & Wolff conclude, "would involve the management of the personality disorder" causing the excited, ulcerated stomach.