THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION 



A REVIEW 



ANCIENT and medieval physi- 

 cians were wont to classify 

 mankind according to tempera- 

 ment — sanguine. melancholic. lym- 

 phatic, phlegmatic, bilious, and the 

 like. With the progress of science, 

 these more or less mystical categories 

 were abandoned, and attention devoted 

 to the detailed characteristics of the 

 individual. 



From this point of view it is evident 

 that a man is merely the sum total of 

 all his traits and characteristics. But 

 as his characters are correlated with 

 each other to some extent, it is not in- 

 conceivable that they might be so 

 grouped as to justify the formation of 

 classes of constitution, replacing the 

 "temperaments" of older writers. 



In the United States, little attention 

 has been paid to the constitution, in 

 this sense of the word, but during the 

 last decade or two it has had a num- 

 ber of energetic students in Europe — - 

 Germany even has a Zeitschrift fucr 

 Konstitutions-Lehrc (Journal of the 

 Constitution). Numerous books have 

 been written on the subject, and one' 

 of the latest of these, by Hans Gun- 

 ther, furnishes a convenient oppor- 

 tunity to examine the ideas on which 

 this study is based. 



In the author's definition, the con- 

 stitution is "the organization of the 

 sum of the inner factors that make up 

 a living organism" This, as the au- 

 thor admits, is abstract enough ; it 

 might lead to nothing more than a 

 study of genetics, and the author, in 

 fact, proceeds to discuss heredity and 

 variation along conventional lines. 

 He then describes the "norm," but as 

 there are three different and equally 

 valid norms (the mean, mode and 



median) it is i)ractically impossible to 

 establish any standard constitution for 

 the human race, unless some arbitrary 

 assumptions are made. 



Here the author is obliged to admit 

 that "We will never be able to grasp 

 in its entirety the complicated struc- 

 ture of the constitution of an organ- 

 ism. Only individual characteristics, 

 simple traits of character-complexes, 

 are accessible." This might be thought 

 to dispose of the need of any further 

 study of the constitution as such. In- 

 stead, Dr. Gunther introduces a whole 

 flock of "partial constitutions." In 

 addition to the individual constitution 

 there is the familial constitution, that 

 of the local race, the race, and the 

 species ; on the other hand, there is the 

 psychic constitution, the professional 

 constitution, the clinical-sematic type, 

 and so on. Again, the masculine con- 

 stitution must be differentiated from 

 the feminine ; the latter, according to 

 Aschner, is distinguished by the fol- 

 lowing characteristics : 



"1. Less tension of the ligaments 

 (hence enteroptosis is found as an 

 anomoly in at least 30% of all women. 



"2. Greater resemblance to the char- 

 acter of the child and greater tendency 

 to infantilism. 



"3. Greater irritability of the nerv- 

 ous system (tendency to hysteria and 

 sensitivism, more intense and wide- 

 spread erogenous zones). 



"4. Quicker and richer production 

 of blood and other fluids (tendency to 

 congestion)." 



Another classification, all too remi- 

 niscent of the "temperaments" of Hip- 

 pocrates and Galen, is that of Sigaud 

 and the French school, based on bodily 

 form, which divides mankind into four 



^ Die Grundlagcn dcr Biologischcn Konstitutionslchrc. by Dr. Hans Gunther, Privat- 

 dozent fur innere Medizin an der Universitat Leipzig. Pp. 136, 22 illustrations. Price, 

 $0.65. Leipzig. Verlag von Georg Thieme, 1922. 



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