Abstract

Objectives: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, in his book named “De Architectura”, stated that the height of a person is equal to his or her length of outstreched arms and fits to a square. He also divided one's height into four equal parts and stated that the length of each of these parts equals to 25% of the height of the individual. This study aimed to investigate to what extent Turkish men fit the Vitruvius square and its equations.

Study Design: Specific body distances of 50 male students were determined by anthropometric measurement techniques and recorded in forms prepared in advance. Then, the arithmetic means and standard deviations were calculated for each distance and compared with the Vitruvius square and related equations.

Results: The height of the participants was 173.3±6.83 cm and their length of outstretched arms was 178.4±7.38 cm. Only 16% of the subjects were determined to fit to the square, 12% remained within the square and 72% were out of the square. Additionally, a very low proportion of the participants met the equations.

Conclusion: It was observed that a great majority of Turkish men do not fit “Vitruvius square” and its equations.