Body Size, Personality and Neurosis

Abstract

From time immemorial man has tended to classify his fellow beings into physical types associated with specific disease susceptibilities or characteristic mental or moral qualities. The ancient Hindus described three types of human physique likened to the elephant, the bull and the deer. Hippocrates formulated a dichotomy in build with a narrow type, the habitus phthisicus as one extreme and a broad type, the habitus apoplecticus, as the other.