TYPE. — By t., or “typical phenomenon,” one should understand that phenomenon which, given a collectivity of phenomena that differ from one another within certain limits, is best able to represent the collectivity as a whole. Statisticians regard as “typical” the characteristic that corresponds, in the distribution, to the most numerous class, to the most common variant among many rarer ones, and sometimes even the simple resultant of a large number of observations. By “habit” or “morphological t.” is meant the particular bodily architecture of an individual, ascertainable through the correlation of the anthropometric measurements of the segments and cavities of his body.
A true typological science is of very recent origin, having its founder in Achille De Giovanni (1838–1916); nevertheless, the tendency to classify individuals according to various groups is extremely ancient, so much so that Hippocrates already distinguished two pathological human t.: the long type (with limbs long in relation to the trunk, thin, and predisposed to phthisis), and the short type (predisposed to apoplexy). Until 1800, however, the classification of individuals most commonly used was that proposed by Galen and championed by the Salernitan school, which was more a temperamental classification than a morphological one, since it was based on the clinical and functional characteristics determined by the presence or absence in the organism of four presumed substances (humors): blood, bile, phlegm, and black bile. Hence four human t., or temperaments: sanguine, choleric or bilious, atrabilious or melancholic, and phlegmatic.
A. De Giovanni, on the other hand, brought the study of human individuals onto a new plane, adding to pure clinical observation a study based on rigorous measurements of the human body, thus initiating constitution (v.) of individuals, that is, of their bodily structure, a value understood both in the absolute sense and in terms of the reciprocal relations among the individual parts of the body. He thus created his three “combinations” (or habits), not merely identifying three distinct t. according to their outward morphological appearance, but also assessing from the external constitution the development of the internal organs, their functionality, and their morbid dispositions. De Giovanni recognized the brachitypes, longitypes, and normotypes. At the same time as his studies, numerous other researchers in Italy and throughout the world devoted themselves to this new branch of medicine, proposing more or less similar classifications. The following may be mentioned: Kretschmer, Stiller, and Kraus in Germany; Naegeli and Jung in Switzerland; Marañon in Spain; Obermer and Cavadias in England; Marinescu in Romania; Charcowe Nicolaeff in Russia; Biant and Stockardt in North America; Rossi, Boccia, and Berardinelli in Latin America.
Anthropometry took a decisive step forward through the work of G. Viola, who was the first to conceive the idea of applying to medicine Quetelet-Gauss’s law of errors (the binomial law or law of probabilities), for assessing the frequency of a given characteristic in a given collectivity of individuals. In this way, a binomial curve can be obtained graphically, its apex representing the “norm” in the statistical sense, while its two branches (the ascending and the descending) display the variations from the norm. Viola thus proposed a calculation for determining the extent of the quantitative deviation from the statistical norm and the index of the severity of the deviation. On the basis of his studies he formulated a new classification, based both on the simple measurements of the trunk and on the value of the trunk-to-limb ratio, considering the first of these two terms as an expression of vegetative life and the second as an expression of relational life. Thus, for Viola, there are macrosplanchnics, normosplanchnics, and macrosplanchnics, according to the dimensions of the trunk; while, in relation to variations in the trunk-to-limb proportion, there are brachitypes (the trunk more distant from the “norm” than the limbs) and longitypes (the limbs more distant from the norm than the trunk); when the two deviations from the norm are equal, both for the trunk and for the limbs, there are normotypes. In this way, the t., or rather the “constitutional ectypes,” are the product of a single universal biological law of deformation of the mean t., a law enunciated and demonstrated by Viola in 1907: “The more rapidly an organism accelerates its development, the more it differs morphologically.
ha colas inorghesi lode Pirotus. Scion a adfermentare me andiamo deghantifili e loraffimolo; è perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotamintame loraffimolo diati, iorotano, e quasi lucchierando dodifilatore affimano, guttano vero, e gupero del decipito di lione. Imlu. n. 6. Scion a Tim, editemonare me andiamo deghantifili e loraffimolo diati, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi, perotato o settero reticopena ad oredi
a. A. C. D. E. F. G. H. J. Ombra fine quaterni, ecorpo notifimo lax ratio