THE NOSE.
What a great variety of shapes the noses of adults in a civilised
country present! You will not find this diversity of shape in new-born
infants. Where, then, is the cause of this? There must be some cause,
and I think that I can tell you something about the ugly shaped noses,
how they have arisen, why they exist, and how they may be prevented.
If you ask six persons what is the good of the nose, five at least
will answer "to smell with." Is it likely that an organ so large
and exceedingly complex as the nose would only serve the sense of
smell--a sense which in man is extremely feeble! No! it has a far more
important function to perform, for the nose is the organ through which
we breathe. But surely we breathe through our mouths? I am afraid that
most of us do, more's the pity! Children at school are often told to
breathe through their mouths, and doubtless this helps the development
of coughs and colds which are so common during childhood.
Everybody ought to breathe through the nose, but it is not everybody
who can do so.
This is a country of catarrhs, and of all the organs in the body, the
lining of the nose is the most prone to this form of inflammation.
Catarrh of the nose prevents you from breathing properly by blocking
up the passages through the nose. This is one of the forms of nasal
obstruction, and it is nasal obstruction which produces ugly noses.
Long continued obstruction, whatever it is due to, ends by deforming
the nose.
To me, a turned up nose, a long thin nose, a very small nose, a nose
with small nostrils, or a nose that is flat between the eyes, are the
ugly forms, and every one of these may result from nasal obstruction.
A few words of description as to how these various deformities of the
nose are produced will help you to guard against letting your daughters
grow up with deformed noses.
The turned-up nose is very common and when well marked is exceedingly
ugly. People who cannot breathe easily through the nose are very fond
of sniffing, and this of itself tends to produce a "snub nose." The
chief cause, however, of all these forms of noses is that the nose
does not grow properly when it is out of working order. Let me explain
this more fully by an example. A girl of four years old has "adenoids"
at the back of her nose. These prevent her from breathing through her
nose. She has therefore to breathe through her mouth. When a girl gets
to be thirteen, a great change should occur in the nose; it should get
larger and its cavities become more capacious. It is at this period
that the definite shape of the nose is fixed. In the case of the girl
we mention her nose has been useless from childhood, and nature will
never develop a useless organ. When she was a child she had a small
nose on a small face, when she becomes a woman she will have a small
nose on a big face. Whatever the size of the nose it should fit the
face, and a snub nose, or a thin, or a very small, or a flat nose will
be the result.
The obvious way to prevent your children from growing up with badly
formed noses is to be very careful to see that they use their noses,
and if they cannot breathe through them to have proper treatment to
enable them to do so.
If you have grown to maturity with a malformed nose, can anything be
done to lessen its ugliness? Well, here you see the body has finished
growing, and one cannot be sure that any benefit will accrue from
treatment. But in nearly every case that I have seen, some distinct
improvement has occurred in the shape of the nose, after a very
long-continued and neglected nasal obstruction has been remedied.
Those that have nasal obstruction would do well to have that condition
seen to at once. For centuries this condition was neglected. It not
only interfered with beauty, but it was and is the cause of many
serious maladies.
A nose that is bent to one side almost invariably has its origin in
a broken nose. Fortunately not every nose that is broken shows its
misfortune on the surface. If you would examine the noses of five
hundred people, I very much doubt if there would be more than three
hundred in whom the nose was not broken.
If ever you have cause to think that you have broken your nose, go to
a doctor and have it seen to, for very frequently, if it be properly
"set," any possible deformity can be averted.
There is a little instrument which has been before the public for some
time called a "nose machine." This instrument attempts to do by force
what medicine tries to do by art--to cure nasal deformity. It cannot do
what it is intended to; Nature may be encouraged by kindness, but she
can never be overcome by force.
Now let us talk about another condition of the nose, which appears to
trouble girls very much. Red noses are decidedly not beautiful. Common
enough they are, but in very many cases they can be cured by a few
trifling precautions. The commonest cause of red noses in girls is
drinking tea; but anything that produces indigestion will cause a red
nose: eating too fast; not masticating properly; eating indigestible
food; drinking largely with meals; running about just after eating;
tight lacing and lack of exercise are the common causes of indigestion,
and these, therefore, are the causes of red noses.
Here the cure is simple enough. Avoid the exciting cause and the red
nose will get all right again.
Continued indigestion, especially if it is due to excess of tea or
spirits, produces a more permanent redness of the nose. This is called
"rosacea" or more popularly "grog-blossoms." We rarely see the genuine
"tippler's nose" except in persons who have indulged too freely in
alcohol. But we do see a condition not very dissimilar from it in
tea-drinkers and others who overtax their digestions.
To cure this complaint, scrupulous care must be taken with the diet and
the exciting cause must be entirely suppressed. Locally an ointment of
ichthiol (two per cent.) produces a rapid improvement.
(_To be continued._)
WHERE SWALLOWS BUILD.
BY SARAH DOUDNEY.