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The article presents a study that examined the feeling and attitude of patients. At least once a day every hospital patient is asked how he feels. Customarily, his answer to this question is short. He describes himself as: "Kind of low," "full of pep," "fair to middling." The first step taken toward measurement was the interviewing of hundreds of hospitalized sailors and marines, orally and by means of questionnaires, regarding how they felt and attitudes toward life in general. As might be anticipated, illness affects patients' feelings more than their attitudes. Both are undoubtedly affected to some extent, for scores on a non-patient group would be expected to average somewhat above the midline, probably around 7.0.