Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1896 — NOSES MADE GOOD AS NEW [ARTICLE]

NOSES MADE GOOD AS NEW

Celluloid, Patience, and Maybe a Finger Needed. “Building a nose,” sounds queer, writes Dr. Whitlnger in The New York Journal and yet that is just what surgeons are doing almost every day. Every surgeon who possesses mehanteal ability enough to be called a “plastic surgeon” will take a contract to build a nose just as a builder takes contract for building a house. The operator, in the case of a man the bony portion of whose nose has been destroyed, first removes the dead bone until he finds healthy bone. He Is then ready to proceed with the building. Holes are drilled into the sound bone for the reception of the metallic frame work which Is to support the flesh that will give the nose the appearance of having Its natural bony and cartilaginous support. Probably the most famous rase of nose-building is that of the late Dr. Thomas Sabine. The operation was performed at Bellevue Hospital. The patient's nose had been entirely destroyed by n disease called lupus. The surgeon transplanted the middle finger of the patient's hand to replace the nose. To the house surgeon felt the task of destroying the nail. For tills lie used a. powerful acid. In reInting his experience recently he said that he supposed his work had provert successful, but after the linger hart been transplanted he found that the mill was Inclined to grow again, and ho was obligml to use the acid reputedly before It was finally destroyed. There are surgical records of other similar cases in many of which the nail had grown on the "finger nose,” In ordinary cases whore only the bony portion of the nose lias been destroyed celluloid Is said to prove most satisfactory, as It Is better borne in living tissues than any other substance. A ease was recently shown at the Academy of Medicine. The patient was n young man whoso nasal bones hart been destroyed through disease. The skin had fallen into the cavity. The shape of the nose was restored by an aluminum tripod. The surgeon drilled a hole In the frontal bone for Hie reception of one branch of the apparatus, while the other branches fitted Into holes which had been drilled In the upper jawlxme. To the untrained eyethe nose had every appearance of being; normal.