FIG. 28.
The turbinated (Fig. [28]) bones are often hypertrophied, as is also the nasal septum (vomer or dividing bone) and the mucous membrane. This results from the general instability of the nervous system with its special expression in increased blood supply, whence occur overgrowth in and imperfect work by the mucous membrane, causing mouth-breathing and polypi, which again increase this defect. All these predispose to germ invasion.
In the figure are also shown grooves upon the teeth. Sufficient symptoms are here evident to stamp this as a marked degenerate skull.
Hypertrophy of the turbinate bones, septum, and mucous membrane, as it occurs among degenerates, appears in Fig. [29], and is due, first, to an unstable nervous system, and, second, a larger system of blood vessels which ramify through these parts. Stimulation, together with the stenosis (narrowing), tend to produce a closure. Still further, irritation and an unstable mucous membrane results, with polypi or adenoid vegetation following.
FIG. 29.
Not only do deflection of septum and hypertrophy of the nasal bones occur, but the antrum (cavity behind the nose) may be almost entirely obliterated, while the upper jaw is arrested (Fig. [29]). The antrum may be entirely wanting, as in Fig. [30]; so unstable may these tissues develop that the nasal cavities may become almost entirely obliterated, as observed in this figure.
