A NEW NOSE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 July 1928, Page 4

A NEW NOSE

SYDNEY HOSPITAL MIRACLE. SYDNEY, June 28. New poses for old. It reads like a pago from the Arabian Nights, or perhaps a beauty parlour advertisement. Actually it is something that the doctors at the Sydney Hospital regard merely as coming within the ordinary routine of modern plastic surgery. Anyway tho man who has had fitted a new nose regards it all as a miracle', and so wfll most people who stop to think about it. Patrick Purcell went through the war without so mijeji as receiving a scratch, and it remained for a peace-time adventure to inflict upon him Lvliat lie feared would be a hideous disfigurement for life. On April 7th, 1924, Purcell, when walking through a Sydney street saw a man, n Russian sailor, and a woman fighting. The sailor suddenly draw a bottle from his pocket and hit the woman on the head. Purcell rushed to.hcr assistance, and the drink, maddened' foreigner , made a vicious slash at him with the broken neck ol the bottle. The jagged glass struck Purcell’s face and slashed off bis nose. Purcell was taken to the Sydney Hospital and it was seven months before lie was allowed to leave. In the meantime the doctors had removed a rib from Purcell’s left breast and bad grafted it into his forehead to ionn the base of the nose, which was to be made later. .Meanwhile a flap of l skin was lifted from each jaw and was grafted back to cover the bone, .and Purcell was allowed to go away with some semblance of a nose, to wait until it was time to proceed further with the work. Last Christimts he returned' again to the hospital, and the doctors resumed their task. Another rib was taken, this time from the right side, and it was grafted on over the previous graft, while, to make the fleshy part of the reconstructed nose, a strip of skin was taken fj-om his neck and made into what is known as a “ cateipillar tube ” graft. Tlie skin was formed into a tube like a small trunk, and the loose end was grafted into position on Purcell’s cheek nearer to his nose than the other end. As soon as the graft “took” the back end >vas cut away and was grafted into the cheek, closer , still to the nose. This ( process was repeated until last week the doctors were able to gi(aft the tube over the lower part of the nose, and the nostrils and tip of the nose were properly formed. There stilt remains some “ trimming” to be done, some of tho rough edges to be cut away, and when this is completed Purcell will have a nose almost as good as the old one. Even now he is quite pleased and proud of it. He-can sneer-e, lie can blow it, he can wriggle it abdut by means of his facial muscles, and above all, he can smell, and face his fellowmen without them recoiling in hprroi at the sight of him. In the four yea's since he lost his nose he has undergone twenty operations, hut he is a happy man and thankful to the hospital for what it lias done for him.