Inasmuch as the civilised races of Europe have so long been indifferent
to their ugly noses, we can hardly wonder that barbarians should not
only disregard their nasal caricatures, but even exaggerate their
grotesqueness deliberately. We have already seen how certain tribes
habitually flatten their already flat noses. Moreover, “in all quarters
of the world the septum, and more rarely the wings, of the nose are
pierced; rings, sticks, feathers, and other ornaments being inserted
into the holes.” “In Persia one still finds the nose-ring through one
side of a woman’s nostril;” and Professor Flower states that such rings
are often worn by female servants who accompany English families
returning from India.
Captain Cook, in the account of his first voyage, says of the east-coast
Australians: “Their principal ornament is the bone which they thrust
through the cartilage which divides the nostrils from each other.... As
this bone is as thick as a man’s finger, and between five and six inches
long, it reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both
the nostrils that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for
breath, and snuffle so when they attempt to speak that they are scarcely
intelligible even to each other.”
This last sentence bears out our assertion regarding the philological or
conversational importance of the nose. And there is another lesson to be
learned from these barbarian mutilations of the nose. If Huns,
Tahitians, and Hottentots are able to make their noses as delightfully
ugly as they please, why should not we utilise the plastic character of
the nasal cartilages for beautifying ourselves? Says a specialist: “Much
can be done by an ingenious surgeon in restoration and improvement. A
nose that is too flat can be raised, one with unequal apertures can be
modified, one too thin can be expanded. Cosmetic surgery is rich in
devices here, all of which are very available in children and young
persons, less so when years have hardened and stiffened the cartilages
and bones.”
Thus may Cupid employ a medical artist as an assistant in his efforts at
improving the physical beauty of mankind. Needless to add that only a
first-class surgeon should ever be allowed to meddle with the features.
Cosmetic surgery has already reached such perfection that it can even
make “a good, living, fleshly nose. It will transplant you one from the
arm or the forehead, Roman or Grecian, _à volonté_; it will graft it
adroitly into the middle of the face, with two regular nostrils and a
handsome bridge; and it will almost challenge Nature herself to improve
on the model” (Brinton and Napheys).
Medical men are daily complaining in a more clamorous chorus that their
profession is overcrowded. Why don’t some of them in every city and town
make a specialty of cosmetic surgery and hygienic advice? Why leave this
remunerative field entirely in the hands of dangerous quacks who alone
have enterprise and sense enough to advertise?
As illustrations of what may be done in this direction, two points may
be noted. A French surgeon, Dr. Cid, noticed that persons who wear
eyeglasses are apt to have long and thin noses. The thought occurred to
him that this might be due to the compression of the arteries which
carry blood to the nose, by the springs of the glasses; so he
constructed a special apparatus for compressing these arteries, and by
attaching it to a young girl’s large and fleshy nose, succeeded in
reducing its size. Why should people worry themselves and frighten
others with ugly noses when they can be so easily improved?
The second point is still more simple. It is important that the nose
should occupy exactly the middle of the face, so as to secure bilateral
symmetry. Yet Welcker, who made a number of accurate observations on
skulls, plaster casts of the dead, as well as on the living countenance,
noted that perfect symmetry is very rarely found. The obliqueness is
sometimes at the root, sometimes at the tip of the nose, and the cause
of the deviation from a straight line is attributed to the habit most
persons have of sleeping exclusively on one side,—a practice which is
also objectionable on other grounds. Mantegazza, however, suggests that,
as he has found the deviation almost always toward the right side, it
may be due to our habit of always taking our handkerchief in the right
hand; and the same view is held by Drs. Brinton and Napheys. So that we
have here an additional argument in favour of ambidexterity.
The New York _Medical and Surgical Reporter_ for November 1, 1884,
prints a lecture by Dr. J. B. Roberts on “The Cure of Crooked Noses by a
New Method,” which, as it is not conspicuous and hardly leaves a scar,
may be commended to the attention of those afflicted with nasal
deformities. The pin method, he says, is applicable “even to those
slight deformities whose chief annoyance is an æsthetic and cosmetic
one. I leave the pins in position for about two weeks.”
Red noses, if due to exposure, can be readily whitened by one of the
methods to be discussed in the chapter on the complexion. If due to
disease, they call for medical treatment; if to intemperance or tight
lacing, moral and æsthetic reform is the only possible cure.