CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PATTERNS OF BREATHING AND PERSONALITY MANIFESTATIONS

Abstract

In 1937¹ it was suggested that there existed in a series of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia a type of breathing which was characteristic of a considerable number of this particular group. Since that time further work has substantiated the observations previously recorded; this paper reports some of the corroborating evidence. It is based on the results obtained from a study of 59 Harvard undergraduates who served as subjects in an investigation by the Grant Study of Social Adjustment at Harvard University, on the observations on a group of Negro share croppers studied in Mississippi and on the measurements derived from 25 patients selected at random from those confined to a hospital for mental disease with a condition diagnosed as chronic schizophrenia. METHOD With the subject in a basal state the breathing was recorded on a Roth-Benedict apparatus. From the record thus obtained a representative 100 consecutive inspirations