Abstract: 103 items were measured each in 55 cases of patients with endemic cretin and of the control normal people with the same sex, race etc. The discriminant function and value were obtained. The results indicate that the normal people in Kaiyuan County is close to North Chinain physical characters. The patients with endemic cretin are short because their sitting height and length of lower limb are short. Total height of head is almost same to that of the control.The nasal height, breadth of pelvis, auricular height, physiognomic facial height, deepness of nasal roof and breadth of head are very important to distinguish patients from the control.

Key words: Pathological anthropology; Discriminant function