By an extensive review of various phenomena in animals, Beach attempts to show that the concept named 'psychosomatic' should be seen as a physiological adaptive response to stimuli and that this response can be produced and studied in animals. A plea is made for awareness of the possibility of 'psychosomatic health'. One statement may serve to illustrate the position of the author: 'There is no necessity of postulating a "psyche" which acts upon the soma'.