Constitutional types tǐ zhì xué shuō · 中医体质学说

Classical and modern Chinese literature describes people as falling into broad constitutional types: the balanced type, and types described as qi-deficient, yang-deficient, yin-deficient, phlegm-damp, damp-heat, blood-stasis, qi-stagnant and allergic-constitution. The most widely used modern scheme in China lists nine such types.

The useful part of the idea is that the same complaint can behave differently in different bodies, which is why two people with the same symptom may be discussed quite differently. The caution matters just as much: a constitutional type is a description of tendency, not a diagnosis, and it should not be used on its own to decide what to do.