LONGILINEOUS. - Designation used to indicate a human morphological type in which the body's developmental proportions are shifted toward a predominance of longitudinal diameters over transverse ones and of the limbs over the trunk, so that the organism as a whole takes on an appearance sometimes slender and well developed, sometimes slender, frail and drooping. The brevilineo type (v.) is opposed to the l. type.
The Italian constitutionalist school, in particular N. Pende, describes two varieties: the l. sthenic-tonic biotype and the l. hyposthenic-hypotonic biotype. In the first there appears a clear development in length of the bodily forms with a predominance of the thorax over the abdomen, a well-proportioned and harmonious body; in it there is no excess of fat, muscles rarely very developed, yet tonic; height, in both sexes, tends to be above the norm. On the endocrine side (v. ENDOCRINE, GLANDOLÉ), hyperfunction of the thyroid and pituitary is always present, whether or not combined with that of the gonads and adrenals, whence a series of subvarieties. The conditions of functional equilibrium of the organism are good, at times excellent for harmony and resistance of the systems. On the neuro-psychic side, they are tachypragic and tachypsychic, that is, quick in moving and
...larly of the limbs gives the individual a frail, hypotonic, drooping appearance, with evident curves and humps (kyphosis and lordosis) of the vertebral column, particularly of the cervico-dorsal and dorso-lumbar regions; the muscles are frail and hypotonic, the fat scanty; the sexual characters little developed. On the endocrine side, hyperthyroidism with hypogenitalism, hypoadrenalism, hypoparathyroidism with spasmophilia; the hypoadrenal variety is particularly predisposed to tuberculosis. On the psychic side, not tachypragic and tachypsychic; the mood is sentimental and depressed; the intelligence often quite good, at times brilliant, but rapidly exhaustible, of a fanciful type, neither concrete nor practical.
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Giuseppe de Ninno