Abstract
Objectives: This study aimed to examine the difference of external appearance measurements in subjects of different regional lineages as subgroups within the Tae-eumin Sasang grouping. Methods: We chose 51 Tae-eumin subjects diagnosed by Korean Sasang constitutional medical doctors aided by voice analysis. The subjects were divided into two groups, the northern and southern lineages, by an expert on facial characteristics of the two lineages. We took pictures of their frontal and lateral views by Martin's method, measured projected length of face with the Facial Feature Measurement Program, and analyzed anthropometric facial differences between the northern and southern types. Results: Results show differences between the northern and southern types. First, the northern type of face has bigger measurements than the southern type on the frontal face. Second, the northern type of face has higher measurements of "height", which means distance from pupil to a specific measurement point, than the southern type on the frontal face. Third, on the frontal face, the northern and southern types have differences with respect to eyebrow, point of sellion, and eye. Fourth, on the side face, the northern and southern types have differences in lip, mandible and ear. Conclusions: We found our anthropometric facial measurements of the northern and southern lineages to be in accordance with previous literature. Knowledge of the differences between the northern and southern lineages can be a hint in constitutional diagnosis when differentiation is clinically confusing.
