The “Central Printing House” has recently released the work of the university lecturer Alexandru Postolachi titled “The biological unit of nature and man: aesthetic and anthropological research with emphasis on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic characteristics of the dento-maxillo-facial system”, with professor Valeriu Burlacu as editor-in-chief. 2019, 496 p. ISBN 978-9975-146-31-9.
The paper is in Russian. The monograph is soon expected to be edited in Romanian and English.
Alexandru Postolachi graduated from the Faculties of General Medicine and Dentistry. He began the research in this field together with the late Professor Ilarion Postolachi, the father of the author, immediately upon graduation.
The author published 83 scientific papers on the subject treated in the monograph (abstracts, articles, methodological guides, collective monographs), in national and international publications.
The proposed monograph aims at a comprehensive, holistic analysis of the theoretical and practical problems of humankind and medicine, especially dentistry, striving to highlight the unity of natural, philosophical and scientific approaches relevant to modern anthropology and the contemporary world culture.
The first part is devoted to one of the fundamental issues of science – the evolution of life and the modelling mechanisms on Earth, comprising four chapters. In a detailed and interdisciplinary fashion (history, philosophy, biology, physics, biomechanics, etc.) the author analysed not only the scientific facts, but also those accumulated by humankind for thousands of years in their general cultural context. There is an inseparable thread of continuity between the philosophies of different eras and medical sciences, the unifying goal of which was the cognition of man, nature and the universe.
The second part is devoted to the fundamental universal laws dictating the structure, development and biomechanics of the body and the dento-maxillo-facial system, comprising four chapters. It carries out a broad analysis of the interdisciplinary scientific facts and the findings of the author’s research into the general laws of spiral biosymetry, the golden ratio / the golden ratio and the Fibonacci series, in both nature and in the organization and formation of the structural elements of the dento-maxillo-facial system. It tackles the key role of spiral biosymmetry in the phylogenesis of the tissues and organs of the dento-maxillo-facial system. In the study of longitudinal sections of gypsum diagnosis models of the upper jaw, the author noted the manifestation of three main types of spirals in the shape of a hard palate: 1) hyperbolic helix; 2) a spiral “rod”; 3) logarithmic spiral. The shape and the aesthetics of the dentation in the frontal area are also associated with the geometric properties of the logarithmic spiral. Departing from these concepts, one could formulate the “phyllotaxic” theory of tooth eruption.
The author proposed a biomechanical theoretical model of the hard dental tissues based on quantum mechanics, which studies the mechanical movement of molecules and atoms, including the movement of nuclei and electrons. The need to study micro processes is pivotal to the successful development of biomechanics, allowing to determine the influence of internal processes occurring at the micro level and their fundamental effect on the external manifestations of living organisms. It is worth mentioning that “Despite the presence of numerous literary sources about biomechanics, the questions surrounding the mechanical reactions in hard tissues are extremely complex because they are closely related to the characteristics behind the origin, formation and the development of dental tissues, as well as to their seamless integration in the work of a full-fledged organ “( quoted from page 384). If looking through the prism of physics, it presents a model of elastic wave movement in hard dental tissues, including the structure of the enamel-dentin complex under functional load. “The mechanical waves occurring inside dental tissues during mastication carry energy from one point to another and the enamel prisms and dentinal canaliculi serve as some kind of acoustic waveguide” (quoted from page 383).
The author notes that bionics, as a science, traces its roots to the second half of the twentieth century and the interest it amassed is due to the significant practical orientation of this science that studies the principles of building and operating biological systems in order to create new technologies – materials, tools, devices, mechanisms, etc. Bionics studies the most diverse features of living organisms, including the characteristics of the materials, the energetic and informational systems. The clinical examples illustrate the principle of a biomimetic spiral used in the restoration of the tooth’s root canal walls and their modelling with a micro-hybrid photo-polymerized composite.
Information on the origin and the development of aesthetics as a science throughout human history is also provided, highlighting the important subject facial symmetry and asymmetry. Facial asymmetry is of a professional interest to cosmetologists, maxillofacial surgeons, dentists, forensic experts, psychologists, anthropologists and other specialists “(quoted from the page 330). The work goes on to discuss the perspectives of modern scientific fields based on biomimetic nanotechnologies, robotics, engineering genetics, analysing their positive and probable negative effects on the human body and civilization in the present and in the future.
Thus, the presented monograph covers a wide range of questions and issues that are scarcely or perhaps not at all included in medical literature, and therefore is a unique interdisciplinary scientific work in modern dentistry, fulfilling all international requirements. The monograph is recommended to a wide range of specialists, students and graduates of medical and dental universities.
University Lecturer Alexandru Postolachi
