If you thought nose jobs were a relatively new procedure pioneered by Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeons, think again.
They were being carried out as long ago as the early 1800s. But in those days they were done without anaesthetic—just a burly surgeon’s assistant to hold the patient down.
A book published in 1833 called Surgical Observations On The Restoration Of The Nose; And On The Removal Of Polypi And Other Tumours From The Nostrils has been discovered at a house clearance sale in England. It was written by a surgeon named John Stevenson Bushnan as a guide to other surgeons and includes gruesome diagrams showing how people’s faces were to be cut open and stitched back together.
The text describes how surgeons should use scalpels, knives, pins and needles to carry out the operations but makes no mention of anaesthetic or pain relief, only instructions as to how an assistant should hold the patient still.
One section reads: ‘The patient being seated on a chair, behind which an assistant holds the head firmly against his breast, the operator thrusts a small pointed scalpel into the left side of the cavity before the sunken point of the nose, and by an incision proceeding obliquely upwards, cuts through the soft parts as far as the nasal process of the frontal bone. A similar incision is then made on the right side.’
It lists useful tools for the job, including scalpels, knives, scissors, quills, pins and needles. The extensive list of nose jobs includes methods of restoring depressions of the nasal ridge, improvement of the nose by transplantation from neighbouring parts, and restoration of the entire nose from the forehead and from the scalp.
It’s enough to make you shudder at the thought of it!
