Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/117

 should in all cases be attended to with promptness and skill. Even if neglected, much can be done by an ingenious surgeon in restoration and improvement. A nose that is too flat can be raised, one with unequal apertures can be modified, one too thin can be expanded. Cosmetic surgery is rich in devices here, all of which are very available in children and young persons, less so when years have hardened and stiffened the cartilages and bones.

Even when there is no nose at all, cosmetic surgery does not quit the field. Quite the contrary. Here is one of its most brilliant victories. For, what think you? it is ready to furnish a nose, not of silver or gutta-percha, though it can do this too, but one "out of whole cloth," a good, living, fleshly nose. It will transplant you one from the arm, or the forehead, Romanic or Grecian, à volonté; it will graft it adroitly into the middle of the face, with two regular nostrils, and a handsome bridge; and it will almost challenge nature herself to improve on the model.

The surgeon, in this triumphant operation, takes advantage of a strange property of parts of our body to continue growing when they are transplanted. To give an example: At German universities there is a great passion for duels. It is an exciting pastime, and it is not very dangerous. The opponents are perfectly protected everywhere but in the face, and the weapons they use are swords very sharp at the points. They