The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1882-04-26
A CELLULOlD NOSE.
How n San Francisco Dentist Has Repaired
the Ravages of Disease.
[San Francisco Bnlletin1


[San Francisco Bulletin.l
A Kearney street dentist, who is anything
but old in years or his profession, yesterday
afternoon performed the difficult artistic
job of supplying a horribly disfgured hui
man face with an artificial nose and upper
| lip. A reporter who had heard that the OPP
Grafton was to be performed called on the
| skillful practitioner and requested permits
sion TO witness the achievement of science.
At first The dentist declined to allow
representative of the press to witness
the operation, having grave fears that such a
proceeding would scatter the sacred tradi-
tons of the healing art which maintain and
encourage mediOcrity of compelling every
clever practitioner TO hide his light under q
bushel and await the slow process OF being
discovered in the darkness of his unadver-
| tised Office by an indiscrimlnating public.
Having been assured that his name would
be kept profound secret the dentist con-
scented to crafty his visitors curiosity, and
stated that the patient was Chinese woman
whose and upper lip had been destroyed by
cancer.
"Sae will be here in few moments" said
the dentist, and almost Immediately the
woman entered, accompanied by. a man in
Chinese attire, whose face offered iacon-
trovertible evidence of an admixture of
Caucasian blood. The woman held a hand
kerchief to her face until she had taken her
seat In the operating chair. when she re-
moved the cloth and displayed a counter
ance inexpressibly horrible. She had once
been good-looking beyond the degree of
comeliness usually displayed by the Chi
nese women one sees in California, for her
cheeks were round and her eyes
rather shapely. The disease had,
however, not only deprived her of
nose, but destroyed her upper teeth and
/ left the bones bare and surrounded by
| frightful cicatrices that ran through the
corners of her mouth and up the bridge of
the nose toward the eyebrows. To make
such face presentable seemed an impossi-
bility, but the task was performed speedily
and successfully. The nose and lip. had al
ready been nodded in celluloid from plas-
ter cast OF the face, and having been care
! fully colored presented most ifelike ap-
pearance. The dentist in molding the nose
had to depend entirely on his imagination,
and had modelled thorough Asiatic one.
| The artificial lineaments having been pre-
pared. there remained only the interesting
but difficult feat of attaching them.
In supplying artificial noses it is cHstoma-
ry to attach them by spectacles, but in the
Chinese woman's case such an arrangement
would have been impossible, owing 10 the
great size of the Disagreement caused by the
loss of the lip and teeth, The deformity was
overcome by attaching gold spring to the
teeth are affixed. The spring ran up to
where the bridge of the nose should have
been, and to. this spring the artificial nose
and lip were attached by an India rubber
loop. The combined pressure of the
spring and the India rubber drew
the celluloid mask so close to the face
that, being nodded to fit the cheeks,
it would have looked quite natural but for
the lack of that transparency which living
tissue. possesses. While the woman's
countenanGe was in repOse the effect OF the
work was remarkably good and the trans
| formation which it effected in Der looks was
so great that she eagerly seized the mirror
offered by the dentist, and, looking at bsr
reflection, she uttered an exclamation of
surprise and delight. She gave the praeti-
toner handful of $40 pieces and trotted
| eff with her half-casse escort, filled with a
ssatisfastSon at parting with wealth ses5Dn
shown by Mongolians.