PART II.
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.