Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/112

 were the respective traits of the nations whose names they bear.

The care of the nose commences with cleanliness. While this is true, frequent wiping, sniffing, blowing, or picking should be avoided, and children especially should be hindered from so doing, as from such habits the organ readily assumes an unsightly shape. If there is much irritation of the nostrils, it is a sure sign of some internal disorder, and the physician's opinion should be taken. So, too, the discharge is never excessive in perfect health, and, when it becomes so, it is either owing to worms, dyspepsia, chronic catarrh, or some more serious disorder. Those who are subject to frequent "colds in the head" will infallibly destroy the contour of this prominent feature, and they should remove the tendency at once. This can always be done either by cold ablutions without and within the nostrils, correction of dyspeptic troubles (gastric catarrh), medicated inhalations, the nasal douche, or, lastly, change of climate.

Still more essential is it that the discharge from the nostril should be odorless. It must be called a most serious misfortune when this is not the case. The sufferer is offensive to herself, and to every one who approaches her. Her condition demands our most active and sympathizing attention. Often some local irritation produces it, often some constitutional change is taking place, and often that obstinate disease "ozæna,"