Anthropometric Facial Proportions in Medicine

Quantification of facial normality and beauty has always been an ambitious and elusive undertaking. This book has attempted to do so by an extensive, highly technical study of face and head measurements according to sex, ethnic origin, and age. Various indices have been established relating facial proportions subdivided by facial regions. Measurements are further classified by increasing and decreasing indices and by significantly differing and nonsignificantly differing indices. These indices are numerical expressions of facial proportions and are different from the frequently cited cephalometric angles. Although these indices are described as the simplest indicators of changes in the relationships among measurements, their interpretation often proves to be a difficult and elusive task. Canons of facial proportion were formulated by scholars and artists during the Renaissance and were based on the relationships among regions of the face and head established by the great Greek sculptures of antiquity. These neoclassic canons were