A guide to the examination of the nose : with remarks on the diagnosis of diseases of the nasal cavities / by E. Cresswell Baber.

Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to the examination of the nose : with remarks on the diagnosis of diseases of the nasal cavities / by E. Cresswell Baber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    position are seen in cases in which the nostrils form two almost vertical openings, owing to the absence of the cartilaginous nose. Under these circumstances the sense of smell is almost or entirely lost, but can often be restored by an artificial nose. Spencer Watson* attributes the loss of smell in these cases to excessive dryness of the mucous membrane. It is more probably due, as Zuckerkandl suggests, to the vertical position of the nostrils, allowing air to enter the naso-pharynx, through the lower part of the nasal cavities, without entering the olfactory region in sufficient quantity to produce a well marked sensation of smell. Bidder’s idea that the inferior turbinated body was essential to olfaction, does not appear to have been in any way proved; although when we consider how narrow is the slit (fig. 30), through which the air has to pass before it reaches the olfactory region, there can be no doubt, I think, that it becomes to a cer- tain extent warmed and more highly charged with moisture, both of which qualities probably facilitate the perception of the odoriferous particles which it contains. Morell Mackenzie’s observations have shown that the air passing through the nasal cavities becomes warmed before it reaches the pharynx.] He thinks, however, that the real use of nasal inspiration consists rather in the protection it affords against the entrance of minute foreign bodies suspended in the air, than in its thermic effect. The narrowness of the anterior part of the nasal * Diseases of the Nose and its Accessory Cavities, London, 1875, p- 312. t Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 373- By fixing the bulb of a thermometer in the pharynx without allowing the instrument to touch the lips, it was found that gentle nasal inspiration lowered the temperature half a degree be- low 90°, whilst gentle oral inspiration lowered the temperature a degree and a half.
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