Beauty Culture (Woodbury)/Chapter 25

Plastic, or, as it is sometimes called, Cosmetic Surgery, is a part or branch of Beauty Culture which is con fined strictly within the province of the licensed surgeon. A brief account of the work is given here simply that the reader may know something of the nature and variety of the operations that are performed, and the remarkably successful results that follow.

The Nose. On account of its structure and shape the nose lends itself easily to the plastic surgeon's art. If there is too much nose, as, for instance, a prominent hump, a slight surgical operation removes the surplus bone or cartilage. In the case of flaring nostrils, or a drooping septum, or too much flesh at the end, forming what is known as a bulbous nose, these defects are overcome in such a manner that no scar is left, and not much pain suffered nor inconvenience experienced in the way of detention from usual duties,

It is also a comparatively simple matter to add a bit to a saddle- or pug-nose, or to fill out the two hollows, one at the bridge and one near the tip of a nose, which often disfigure an otherwise good face. A hypodermic needle specially constructed for this work is filled with hydrocarbon or paraffin at a temperature somewhat in ​excess of blood-heat. This needle is injected under the skin at the point to be made larger; the paraffin is projected into the hollow beneath the skin; the needle is withdrawn, and, while the paraffin is cooling down to blood temperature, it is pressed into the desired shape with the fingers, and there allowed to remain—itself unseen, but adding very greatly to the symmetry of the face and the resultant expression of beauty and character.

The really difficult feats of plastic surgery in the restoration of noses appear where there is virtually no nose at all. Here a finger is opened up, and bound on the place where a nose is wanted, or a bit of the skin is brought down from the forehead or grafted on from the forearm. These operations have been performed successfully and, while the results are not what might be called a perfect nose, the patient is supplied with what a casual observer takes to be a nose, and is to every eye a great deal hotter than no nose at all.

The Eyelids. A surgical operation that has a marked effect in brightening a face is the lifting of a drooping eyelid.

Wrinkles. The fullness or bagginess under the eyes which makes a woman look old and a man appear dissipated is taken up much as a tailor would take out the surplus cloth that makes a coat wrinkle. This also is the process of lifting drooping checks or a wrinkled, flabby condition of the skin of the neck. For the deep wrinkle that sometimes forms from the wing of the nose to the ends of the mouth an injection of paraffin is the usual treatment,

The Ears. Ears that stick out prominently are set back as close to the head as desired. An elliptical piece ​of the cartilage at the back of the car is dissected out without cutting clear through the car; the raw edges arc brought together with a few sutures; a bandage is fastened about the head to hold the ears undisturbed when the patient sleeps; and in a few days the flamboyant ears are as subdued and retiring as one could wish. If an earring has been torn through the lobe of the ear, the slit can be brought together without a trace, while if the lobe is attached to the skin at the upper edge of the jaw it can be successfully separated.

Hare-Lip. That hideous deformity, a hare-lip, is readily overcome. A child born with this terrible disfigurement may he operated on at almost any time, but preferably about the third year.

Thick Lips. Occasionally the operation of reducing lips that are too thick may be performed, but only with the exercise of great care and patience on the part of the patient. The fullness is removed from the inside, and, as the success of any surgical work is, in large measure, dependent on keeping the part operated on perfectly still, it requires no great imagination to realize the difficulty of supplying food to a person whose lips must be kept perfectly quiet.

Dimples. The production of a dimple in a smooth cheek is occasionally performed, but this is an operation that, while surgically a success, is a practical failure; the dimple can be made and made well, but something happens that was not thought of till after the first handmade dimple became a fact: it is a dimple that is always in evidence. Now the beauty of a natural dimple is that it appears when the face lights up with pleasure, and it keeps out of sight when trouble comes to the face. But ​a person who has an artificial dimple is in a position similar to that of Victor Hugo's "Laughing Man," whose mouth, gashed into a grin in childhood, caused him to appear to be grimacing even when enduring the greatest anguish of soul. The woman who has sought to improve on Nature in an unnatural fashion by cutting a wrinkle in her smooth cheek always repents of her thoughtless action. She appears to beholders as always smiling; at the performance of a tragedy as well as of a comedy, at every funeral as well as every wedding, and (with material disadvantage in respect to the amount of alimony awarded) at her own divorce suit,—which such a woman is pretty sure to experience if she has been able to entrap some man into marriage by the surgical dimple and similar artifices. A conscientious Beauty Culturist will dissuade from her purpose any patron who is so foolish as to consider enhancing her charms by acquiring an expression which is not normal to women in general, and with which Nature never intended exceptionally to endow her.