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Rhino-plas′tic pin.

A pin used in securing an artificial to the natural base or remains of the nose.

The operation for the restoration of the nose was introduced by Gaspar Tagliacozzi at Bononia, about 1553. He cites successes of former operations in ingrafting noses, ears, lips, etc. Tagliacozzi obtained the piece for the replacement by dissection from the shoulder or arm of the patient, or a piece from some obliging person who was willing to be tied to the patient for a few weeks till the graft united, and might be severed from the original proprietor.

Liston introduced the plan of cutting the piece from the forehead of the noseless. This plan had been previously practiced among the Koumas of India, among whom the loss of the nose was inflicted as a penalty for various crimes. The brutal punishments or revenges of Europe, a few centuries since, included various mutilations, pruning off the salient members, especially those of the head, and sometimes, as in the case of Abelard, organs whose loss no skill could remedy, and whose imitation would be but an aggravation.

The “Notary's nose,” by E. About, is an amusing account of the operation for grafting an artificial nose upon the face of a man, M. L'Ambert, who is related to have had his fine Roman nose cut off in a duel with a Turk. A vagabond cat having eaten the amputated organ, the patient is reduced to a choice between the East Indian and Italian methods. The former consists in cutting a triangular piece out of the skin of the forehead, the apex at the bottom, at which point the portion retains its attachment to the brow. The flap is then turned down and twisted half round, so as to bring the epidermis outside, and its edges are sewed to the corresponding outline of the wound. The Italian method is to cut the flap from the arm, to which it is left attached at one point to keep up a vital circulation; the piece is sewed to the outline of the wound, and the arm is bound to the head till the junction is perfected.

M. L'Ambert selected an Auvergnat water-carrier, who consented to allow the flap to be cut from his arm, which was bound to the head of the patient, and so they were united for a month. The interest turns upon the quarrels of the ligatured parties and a supposed connection of the new nose with the bodily conditions of the discharged water-carrier, even after the separation of the parties. The lout becomes dissipated, and the nose is red and swollen; sick, and the nose becomes thin, pale, and attenuated; he enters a looking-glass factory and absorbs so much mercury that the notary's gold spectacles become rotten at the bridge by amalgamation; he catches a terrible cold, and “talking through his nose,” as the phrase is, has a horrible Auvergnat brogue; finally, the man loses his arm by entanglement in some machinery, and the notary's nose drops off.

1877.

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M. L'Ambert (2)
Liston (1)
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1553 AD (1)
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