BREVILINEO

BREVILINEO. – Adjective used in the language of the Italian constitutionalist school associated with A. De Giovanni, G. Viola, and N. Pende, to designate the human morphological type in which the development of the body in width proportionally predominates over development in length: longilineo (v.). N. Pende distinguished a sthenic brevilineo type and an asthenic brevilineo type; the former strong in the development of the skeleton, muscles, and blood; the latter with a thin and fragile skeleton, hypotonic and weak muscles, an abundance of lymph, and a relative lack of blood. The two brevilineo types are predisposed to different functional abnormalities and diseases (v. INDIVIDUO).