lincoln portrait Young Lincoln portrait

by Edward J. Kempf, M.D. Wading River, N.Y.

Hypokinetic Constitution

Lincoln's body growth and energic constitution show gross evidence of pituitary hyperactivity and gonadal hypoactivity. He was a long, thin baby at birth, with unusually long, thin arms and legs. His body was morphologically like that of his tall, thin mother. She was said by her cousins John Hanks and Dennis Hanks {Hertz 2} to have been "5 feet 8 inches [173 cm.] high" and to have weighed about 130 lb. (59 kg.), whereas his father was 5 ft. 10 in. (178 cm.) tall and weighed about 190 lb. (86.2 kg.). Lincoln grew to 6 ft. 4 in. (193 cm.) in height and generally weighed less than 180 lb. (81.6 kg.). His legs and arms were disproportionately long for his body, which, when seated, was about the length of an average six-footer.

The skin of his face was weather-beaten, coarse, deeply grained, dark, and generally sallow or muddy. Many years of close exposure in youth before an open wood fire where he read, possibly left a permanent trophic effect. Deep creases over the forehead, at the outside corners of the eyes and around the mouth indicate an unusual amount of facial work in using the eyes and in laughing.

The neuromuscular tonus of his body was more relaxed than that of the average man. This was shown in the slow, drawling, staccato monotone of his speech; the deliberate, contemplative, meditative manner and slow mental reaction time, and the flat feet. He seems also to have had a lower blood pressure than normal, which probably, when too low, contributed to the production of nervous depression. Self-conscious of his height, he tended to slouch, with stooping of the shoulders and slight bending at the knees; but he generally held his chin up, his posture indicating an ego attitude of humility counterbalanced with well-determined self-reliance and self-respect.

Wold {3} has also reviewed the evidence on Lincoln's physical constitution in relation to his health. He has concluded that any endocrinopathy was limited to indications of thyroid dysfunction, and possibly a slight postpubertal overactivity of the pituitary, which might account for his disproportionately long legs and arms for the rest of the body. Attempts to explain Lincoln's melancholic disposition on an endocrinologic basis would be, Wold says rightly, "merely a venture in the realm of fancy."

However, even though his endocrine constitution is not fully known, it would be more erroneous to disregard the indications of some degree of pituitary, thyroid, and gonadal endocrinopathy than not to consider these factors as having possibly contributed to his hypokinetic constitution.

Many years of hard farm work and wood chopping from childhood to adulthood, out of dire necessity for living, gave him an unusually large and powerful muscular development of the hands and arms, back, and shoulders. His neck, though strong, was long and scrawny in relation to his head and sloping shoulders. His lower jaw was long and heavy and inclined to the acromegalic form.

His constitutional morphologic type was predominantly Kretschmerian asthenic {4} or Sheldonian ectomorphic and cerebrotonic,{5} and his energic constitution was Kempfian hypokinetic.{6} These qualities indicate that Lincoln was probably somewhat hyperpituitary and hypogonadal in endocrine ratio. His constitution disposed to some reduction of autonomic pressure of energy in sexual directions and tended to produce shyness with women and a preference for the company of men, factors of endlessly contributory and determinative influence on the social conditioning and development of his personality.

His slow, drawling speech, slow reaction time, mental deliberateness, and pedestrian rhythm in style of speaking and writing were so consistent with his energic constitution and morphologic type that the latter, obviously, largely determined the former. In Lincoln, the physiopsychological cyclical sequence dominated the psychophysiological cyclical sequence of reactions. In other words, he must be, and generally was, guided by his feelings in what he said and did, for if they did not support him in the work of fulfilling certain self-commitments he would become miserable, if not melancholic.

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