About Face by Jonathan Cole (review)

of this century.) Painless Parker the advent of commercialism, and quackery are all apart of the glorious past of this profession. Given that the history of dentistry may not be on anyone's Top 10 list, Wynbrandt creatively writes a book that provides details about the history of the profession mixed wim anecdotes that allow the reader to whimsically browse through the pages. The evolution of dentistry is presented, and the reader gets a picture of the creativity and the crudeness of dentists, craftsman, tooth-drawers, barber-surgeons, and all others mentioned in this text. Topics such as mercury (silver fillings) and its health implications dating back hundreds of years or the first uses of implantology or transplantology may surprise the reader. Subchapters discussing fluoride, bacteria, X rays, cosmetic dentistry, and other current "hot" topics are all included, and they provide the reader with a basic, understanding of these areas. The historical presentation in Wynbrandt's text allows the reader to understand the origins of current treatments, including bridges, gold restorations, dentures, anesthesia (including the much-needed laughing gas), and the splinting of teeth. He also explores old myths and theories. The Excruciating History ofDentistry is as much for those running out of my office as it is for those in my profession. Wynbrandt's detailed research is quite evident, and coupled with hundreds of stories and fables, this book allows readers to enjoy a subject that few might find appealing. Come on—who really gets up in the morning and is happy they're off to a three-hour appointment with their dentist? I do still have leeches available for such readers. . . . Lou Graham University of Chicago About Face. Jonathan Cole. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. Pp. 223. $28. Jonathan Cole, Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton and Consultant Clinical Neurophysiologist at Poole Hospital, is the latest (but certainly not the last) to jump on the bandwagon of Charles Darwin's theory of expression. The third of Darwin's great trilogy on evolution (and the one most rarely read) The Expression ofEmotions in Men and Animals (1872) argues that all human expression evolved from more primitive forms ofaffect and its articulation in lower mammals. Sigmund Freud's deep-seated desire to present evidence about the existence and structure of the unconscious drove him to examine any possible source, from dreams to slips of the tongue tojokes (as well as works of art) . Darwin also sought out every possible source—from his field notes on the shape ofbird's beaks in the Galapagos to photographs from asylums—as proof of the inexorable evolution of each and every species and the traces left of these earlier stages in each later stage of evolution. This model gave meaning to human anatomy in a manner, providing insight into the body and its evolutionary history. This present book marries the view of a set, non-culturally inflected meaning to the face and its expressions with the neurological case study popularized by the neurologists Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) and Alexander Romanovich Luria (19021977 ) . Cole builds more direcdy on the more recent work of the popular essayistneurologist Oliver Sacks. All seem to provide meaning to the anomalies of the neuPerspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43, 1 ¦ Autumn 1999 | 145 rological case study as a way of understanding the universals of the human psyche. Cole's book, like that of Sacks, is imminently readable. He spins his case studies of impairment of expression or of facial features in complex ways, and his stories are well told. As with Sacks, one can imagine them being turned into an opera or a movie. They speak to us of the power of the universal, which is the human face and its reading. Sadly, as with any claims to a single Uuth about who "we" are, the inflection of this book actually proves quite the opposite. As close as British and American cultures are, it is the case that ideas of impairment, models of expression, claims of "readability" of the face are different in Chicago and Southampton. Thus, Cole's book actually proves quite the opposite of his claim. What seems to be present is a culturally determined reading of the...