Dental Functional Morphology: How Teeth Work

  • P.W. Lucas
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004 price £75, pp355 ISBN 0521562368 | ISBN: 0-521-56236-8

It is always quite exciting receiving a book to review, especially one where you know nothing about the author. After reading this book you come away feeling you actually know quite a lot about the author and his character, thoughts and beliefs. Professor Lucas has written a very personal book on a subject about which he clearly feels quite passionate. It is a very well written text and covers a great deal of ground. The topic is not one that instantly springs to mind as an area for significant undergraduate or postgraduate study. It is a specific area and the book deals — as the author quite rightly states — with the mouth as an oral food processor. The preface is well worth a read as it allows the author to open his heart and explain why he wrote the book. The book is not really aimed at the practising dentist, but at anyone who may have an interest in the function of teeth. It also gives a well researched, but personal, view of the evolution of teeth relative to function. The author's style is very chatty and his sense of humour pervades the whole text making the book very readable.

The first chapter gives a nice introduction to the coming chapters; two to five then look at the structure and function of the mammalian mouth including relevant comment on the evolution of other dentitions relative to function. Fracture mechanics is a major part of the author's thinking regarding the function of teeth. A flick-art placed in the corner of the book allows a very rapid appreciation of the change in shape of teeth over time, complementing the text and its succinct explanations of the same. The final chapter ends with another thought-provoking statement that mastication is a unique major motor activity of mammals and yet little is written about it in a comprehensive manner. The author, successfully in my opinion, attempts to correct this imbalance.

The book contains long appendices, the first giving a very effective explanation of mechanical properties and their measurement. There is also a notes section providing additional information on the chapter contents.

This book will not make the essential reading list of undergraduate programmes in dentistry. It is perhaps more relevant to undergraduate food scientists and nutritionists. It is not a standard postgraduate text except for those highly motivated and interested in this aspect of teeth.