It is our purpose to describe the bony clinical and radiologic findings in cases of masseteric hypertrophy and to report a new entity associated with it—external hyperostosis of the angle of the mandible. The clinical material upon which this study is based consists of 28 cases which were subjected to a multidisciplinary study at Winter Veterans Hospital and other psychiatric institutions in Topeka, Kan., by Guggenheim and Cohen and associates.1 The observations of these workers accord with the opinion of Gurney,7 shared by Kern,13 that the masseteric enlargement is a work hypertrophy caused by the habit of jaw clenching. It has been found that the presence of this condition indicates a severe underlying emotional disturbance. A central problem of the patients concerned has to do with disposal of excess quantities of oral-aggressive energy.
As pointed out by Boldt,4 Barton,14 and others, patients with this condition