NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
BY 
Mb. CHARLES H. WARD. 
REPRINTED FROM THE 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
AMERICAN LARYNGOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, 
Seventeenth Annual Meeting, 1895. NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE* 
By Mr. CHARLES H. WARD. 
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN : When your president 
called on us last Thursday to arrange for a visit from the 
members of the American Laryngological Association, T regretted 
that fate had not set the date of your meeting some months hence. 
Not that you are any the less welcome to-day, but that we are 
unprepared to entertain you in your chosen line of investigation. 
As an establishment we devote our energies to the making of 
scientific collections-collections of rocks, of fossils, of meteorites, 
of shells, of corals, of skins, and skeletons-in fact, of almost every- 
thing within the broad domains of natural history. 
Many are the special collections which have been gradually built 
up within these walls. That of comparative odontology, purchased 
by the New York Odontological Society, and of sponges, which pretty 
nearly fills the next hall, are examples. 
The making of a collection which shall illustrate exhaustively 
and well a given subject is a great educator. Probably no single 
person is so much benefited by a collection as the maker. 
Starting with but a rudimentary or even superficial knowledge of 
the subject treated, the museum-builder works up from the simple 
to the complex, from generalities to specialization. 
He becomes an enthusiast, a monomaniac, a devourer of mono- 
graphs and costly subscription books-in fact, to an unappreciative 
public, a crank. 
* Read before the American Laryngological Association at its seventeenth 
annual congress on the occasion of their visit to Ward's Natural Science Estab- 
lishment. Meeting held in the Hall of Invertebrates. 2 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
But at about the stage when the embryo odontologist begins to 
speak of this skull as exhibiting a monophyodont homodont denti- 
tion, or of that as " a splendid case of pyorrhoea alveolaris" the col- 
lection is completed, perhaps sold, and our enthusiast returns to 
earth again, to become absorbed in turn by other and possibly remote 
subjects. Superficial in a sense he must perhaps ever remain, but 
far from ignorant. Those weeks or months of rapt study, amid a 
profusion of material, a library of authorities, and frequently with 
occasional advice and assistance from the purchaser-always an en- 
thusiast and a master (for, gentlemen, it is the rule that those require 
most illustrations who best understand their subjects)-this short, 
high-pressure, practical course has etched certain truths deep into 
his cortex, never to be entirely effaced. 
It has been my good fortune as a member of the working force 
of this institution to contribute to the series of special collections, 
particularly in the department of human anatomy. 
Later, after Professor Ward has shown you his sponge collec- 
tion, which competent authorities have adjudged the finest in any 
museum, American or foreign, I shall be pleased to exhibit a series 
illustrating human odontology. 
Some time last fall the speaker made a little suite of sectioned 
skulls, showing the auxiliary fossae of the nose, for Dr. George M. 
Lefferts, of New York, a duplicate of these here exhibited, the idea 
being to limit the attention of the student to one point on each 
specimen. The maxillary, frontal, ethmoidal, and sphenoidal sinuses 
are in turn revealed in four of these preparations, the fifth being an 
antero-posterior section of the entire skull a little to one side of the 
median line. (See Fig. 1.) 
Quite recently we agreed to make for the same gentleman a 
series of fifty skulls to illustrate variations of nasal septum, spurs, 
angles, dislocations and fractures of vomer, etc. We expect also to 
include a limited number of ethnological peculiarities of the anterior 
nares, examples of diseased turbinals, etc. As this order was re- 
ceived but a fortnight ago the collection is as yet hardly commenced. 
Hence my expressed wish that your meeting had chanced a little 
later. At present, we will call it the nucleus of a collection, and the 
labeling merely provisional. As appears from the titles of papers 
in your programme, not alone the larynx, but the nares, the sinuses, 
and adjacent territory, are embraced in your repertoire. A few re- 
marks on this region, from both an anthropological and a compara- 
tive standpoint, may not, therefore, prove amiss. HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
3 
We love to reread even a well-known tale in an illustrated edition. 
Permit me, then, to review a few anatomical facts for the sake of 
the illustrations. 
We distinguish as the nose the partially bony, partially fleshy 
Fig. 1.-Sectioned skulls. 
and cartilaginous anterior prolongation of the nasal chamber. It 
has, in the human species, a twofold function: 
(1) The lodging of the first paired organs of special sense, the 
olfactory apparatus; and (2) as the external orifices (also paired) of 
the respiratory system. 
It also subserves, as shown by Charles Bell, by Darwin, and in 
detail by Dr. Harrison Allen, as a means of expression, certain flex- 
ures of its muscles following certain emotions of the mind. 
To Lavater it stood for much more : it was the outwaid and 
visible sign of a temperament, a character. We instinctively asso- 
ciate the Roman nose with command; the Grecian with a fine 
aesthetic sense ; the extremely thin and sharp nose with penetration, 4 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
and the like. Besides all this it is a most marked hereditary fea- 
ture. Cowper's humble hero, who 
" Would not, with a peremptory tone, 
Assert the nose upon his face his own," 
was perhaps wise. It might have been his grandmother's. 
Developed, doubtless, originally as a primitive food inspector, a 
toxicological expert ever on the alert, the position of the nose above 
and in advance of the mouth is well considered. 
As we glance through the zoological series, the nose or its homo- 
logue assumes strange and bizarre forms and functions. 
Absent altogether in many lowly forms, to all of whom respira- 
tion is a necessity, the presence of an olfactory organ is either ex- 
tremely problematic, or suspected but unproved, in numerous cases, 
as, for example, the jellyfish. 
That this sense is one of the earliest to appear, however, can not 
be doubted. The olfactory sense in insects and molluscs is, when 
demonstrably present, frequently far removed from the respiratory 
system, the former breathing through a system of pulmonary tracheae 
that opens on the exterior by numerous spiracles, the latter, either 
by gills, as in the oyster, or by a single contractile spiracle, as in the 
shell-less land snail. 
Passing to the vertebrates, in the skull-less amphioxus or lancelet, 
specimens of which we have here, we find the respiration still carried 
on by means of gills, while on the left side of the anterior end of 
the body-the head end-an involution of the integument, a little 
ciliated pit, reaches inward toward a slight prominence on the 
spinal cord. 
Like the ear or the mouth, an involution of the skin marks the 
first appearance in vertebrates of the olfactory apparatus. 
Unlike the ears, however, it begins as a single organ, as in the 
lancelet, the hagfish and the lamprey, in which latter the olfactory 
lobes exceed in size the cerebral hemispheres. 
Classifically, these single-nostril forms are differentiated as 
Monorrhina from all higher vertebrates, which, having paired nos- 
trils, are termed Amphirrhina. 
In the Teleostei, or bony fishes (this perch, for example), respira- 
tion is still by means of gills, while the nostrils or olfactory orifices, 
now paired, appear just in front of either eye. The nasal sacs, how- 
ever, do not communicate with the mouth. 
In the Dipnoi or lung-fish a curious modification occurs. Liv- 
ing in shallow streams which dry up during the hot season, it has HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
5 
developed accessory lungs, which enable it to breathe air during its 
annual imprisonment in the dried mud of the river bed-a truly 
amphibian life. 
Its nasal sacs, as in the higher vertebrates, communicate with 
the mouth cavity. 
The frog, beginning life with gills, exchanges them later for 
lungs. Its nares, originally used as strictly olfactory orifices, now 
take part in respiration, while, owing to absence of both ribs and 
diaphragm, the frog can inhale only by a bellows-like action of the 
mouth cavity, gulping his air as required. He can not breathe with 
his mouth open. 
We note, en passant, that voice here appears; the musical notes 
that pulsate so persistently through these long spring evenings is a 
batrachian serenade-a love song-and strictly masculine. 
Voice, then, is primarily a sexual allurement. The vague emo- 
tional disturbances produced in the most prosaic mind by the wailing 
notes of the violin or the rhythmic drum-beat seem beyond reason 
in their intensity, stimulating as they do brain centres that were 
before reason in development. 
It is among reptiles that we first find true nostrils-combined 
respiratory and olfactory orifices. 
These are always paired, although in the ophidians associated 
with but one functional lung. The nasal bones, constant in other 
vertebrates, are absent in most chelonians. 
The larynx, while more perfect than in batrachians, is still far 
simpler than in birds. A certain historical serpent excepted, the 
class of reptiles may ,be described as voiceless. The crocodiles, 
highest of reptiles, have valves with which to close their nostrils 
when wrestling with their prey in deep water. Old males among 
the gavials, or Gangetic crocodiles (see cut e, Fig. 3), have also a con- 
siderable enlargement of the nasal sacs at the tip of the snout, which 
enables them to remain below the surface much longer than can 
the females. Furthermore, the crocodile can hold a victim steadily 
under the surface in his open mouth, breathing betimes through the 
nostrils which crown the tip of his extraordinarily elongated snout 
-another valvular arrangement cutting off all communication, for 
the time being, between mouth and respiratory passages; while still 
other valves, or cutaneous lids, seal his ears at will. 
Respiration reaches its highest degree of perfection among birds : 
in them the blood is more rapidly and perfectly oxygenated than in 
any other form of animal. The bodily temperature is consequently 6 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
higher. Not only are the lungs capacious, but a system of subsid- 
iary air-sacs, nine in number, traverse the body-cavity, encroaching 
on the abdominal viscera; while, connecting also with the lungs, the 
hollow bones are stored with heated air, in some instances even as 
far as the phalanges, making a sort of living balloon. Nor is this 
arrangement confined to the birds of flight: this femur of the 
African ostrich, which gives attachment to muscles formidable in 
their strength, is but a shell; how different,, for example, this 
smaller bone-a humerus-from an animal which lives on the sea 
bottom, and whose specific gravity must therefore be great. (I refer 
to the manatee.) 
John Hunter ligated the trachea of a bird, which continued to 
breathe through an artificial opening in the humerus. 
What possibilities of operative procedure does not this suggest, 
were only human subjects able to breathe in the same way ! 
The true larynx in birds, although present, is not the organ of 
voice. It is in the syrinx, or so-called false larynx, a flexible enlarge- 
ment of the lower end of the trachea, just above the branching bron- 
chi, that the musical notes are made. The stork, the eagle, the 
ostrich, lacking the syrinx, are mute, or utter only discordant cries. 
Tn the crane and swan a most unusual modification appears. We 
have here the body of a swan in which you will observe that the 
trachea, instead of entering the thorax directly, descends to the ster- 
num, which it enters, and, describing a long horizontal loop in the 
body of this bone, re emerges and, rising, enters the lungs. Hence 
the booming trombone note so distinctive of these birds. As fore- 
shadowed in the frog, the songs of birds are in part sexual cries, 
the male almost invariably excelling the female as a vocalist. 
b 
c 
Fig. 2. 
The nares, invariably two, may present as mere slits, as in the 
pigeon, or be produced as horny tubes, such as characterize the 
albatross. They may open close to the head on a very long-billed HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
7 
bird, as this pelican, or appear at the tip of the bill, as in that rare 
form, the'wingless apteryx of New Zealand-degenerate scion of 
those gigantic forms, the Dinornis and Note that, like 
the crocodile, the pelican can breathe with its mouth (bill) sub- 
merged, but, living above the water, its nostrils are brought close 
to the head, instead of at the tip of the elongated snout, as in the 
former. The relative position of the submerged prey to the ani- 
mal's air supply remains the same, while the animals themselves are 
reversed. 
The scent of birds is undoubtedly keen; how far this is supple- 
mented or supplanted in birds of prey by their extraordinary powers 
of vision is mainly conjectural, yet the frightful rapidity with which 
buzzards congregate from all quarters at the death of an animal sug- 
gests some signal system of videttes as perfect as unknown. 
d 
Fig. 3. 
f 
9 
Among mammals, the development of the cerebral hemispheres 
is usually accompanied by a corresponding diminution in size of the 
olfactory lobes. The monotremes, the lowest of mammalia, com- 
prise two genera-the Echidna, or spiny ant-eater, a land animal, 
and the duck-billed platypus, or Ornithorhynchus, an aquatic form. 
So closely allied yet so dissimilar in appearance, the first is distin- 
guished by a very large, the latter by a very small, cribriform plate. 
In ornithorhynchus but one olfactory nerve on either side pierces the 
cribriform plate; in echidna the olfactory nerves are very numer- 
ous, and are accommodated on broad ethmo-turbinals. 
That the degenerate olfactory apparatus of the platypus is the 8 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
result of his aquatic habits appears probable on a survey of the 
more strictly aquatic cetacea. 
Among marsupials the olfactory lobes remain prominent, the 
nasal chambers in some kangaroos, remarkable for acuteness of smell, 
being much wider than the anterior portion of the mouth. (See 
Fig. 2, a.) This development of nares reaches its extreme limit in 
the wombat (Fig. 2, 6), in which the nares are absolutely wider than 
the brain cavity. Another peculiarity of the kangaroo deserves 
notice. 
Born in an immature state, the young kangaroo is transferred to 
the marsupium of the female, there to be nourished by milk ejected 
k 
i 
Fig. 4. 
m 
h 
n 
from the teat of the mother, the young one being as yet too helpless 
to suckle. Nature prevents the strangling of the baby kangaroo by 
building upward a prolongation of the larynx, which is embraced by 
the soft palate, respiration continuing unimpeded the while the lac- 
teal fluid trickles in an unbroken stream around the craterlike larynx 
into the oesophagus. 
Of edentates, most of which have highly developed olfactory or- 
gans, we will glance at the great ant eater (Myrmecophaga jubatd), 
whose skull (Fig. 3, d) is interesting from its enormous nasal bones, 
measuring in this specimen 17'2 centimetres in length, and forming 
nearly one thirty-ninth by weight of the entire skull. 
Among rodents, rabbits and hares are proverbially keen of scent, 
here obviously specialized as a protective measure. In the porcupine 
the nasals are the largest bones of the skull (Fig. 4, A). 
Most rodents have the entire nose, save at the middle of the sep- 
tum, covered with hair. HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
9 
In moles, the external nose, produced into a sort of proboscis and 
worked by powerful muscles, is a most efficient excavator. The 
star-nosed mole (Condylura 
cristata) develops a curious, 
many-rayed, double star at 
the extremity of his snout, a 
sort of third hand, whose tac- 
tile impressions guide him 
in his subterranean rambles. 
Certain of the bats have leaf- 
like prolongations of the in- 
tegument rising from the nose. 
Singular conditions are ob- 
served among the cetacea. In 
all, the vocal cords are unde- 
veloped, while, as in the baby 
kangaroo, the elongated larynx 
meets and is embraced by the 
soft palate, not here, however, 
as a temporary arrangement, 
to disappear with weaning, but 
a permanent provision against 
the encroachment of water into 
the trachea while feeding. The 
mysticeti alone of cetaceans 
possess olfactory nerves; we 
can state positively that the 
sperm whale knows not the odor of the ambergris which he produces 
-a perfume, by the way, elaborated as faecal excreta. 
In the sperm whale also, in common with others of the odonto- 
ceti-as the epiodon, hyperoodon, etc.-the skull is remarkable for a 
lack of bilateral symmetry, particularly in the region of the anterior 
nares, where the right aperture becomes very much the larger, the 
nostril continuing through the intervening soft parts to the exterior 
as a single tube, with but a single sigmoid vent. To the lookout in 
the crow's-nest of a whaler the spouting whale is thus instantly 
classified by the single or double spout long ere the animal's outlines 
permit of recognition. 
Fig. 5 is a reproduction of a photograph of the dorsal surface of 
the skull of hyperoddon, the tip of the pointer resting on the ante- 
rior nares. A fine example of Nature's wondrous adaptitude is shown 
Fig. 5. 10 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
in these skulls-one (Fig. 11, o) that of the Greenland seal (Phoca 
groenlandica), the other (Fig. 11, p) the tropical seal (Monachus 
tropicalis). In the former the inferior turbinals are expanded so as 
to present an immense extent of radiating surface, by which the icy 
northern air is heated before reaching the lungs. But the tropic 
seal, breathing warm air, needs no such provision. Perhaps the 
most specialized nose among mammals is that of the elephant, in 
Fig. C. 
which the greatly elongated trunk serves not only for breathing and 
smell, but for prehension, for drinking-by drawing up water which 
is discharged into the mouth-as a trumpet, and as a club. Here 
also the inferior turbinals are rudimentary alike in existing tropic 
and in extinct northern species, the respired air being sufficiently 
heated in its passage through the long trunk. Crowned by a horn, 
or even two, in the rhinoceros, it becomes a weapon of defense, while 
in the sensitive nostrils of the horse are volumes of expression de- 
nied to his artiodactyl neighbor, the ox. 
Keen in the hunted ungulate, through the gradual extermination 
of the less gifted in this respect, the olfactory sense subserves an 
offensive design in the carnivora. 
Like the nose itself, the memory of certain scents is hereditary ; HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
11 
newborn kittens show unmistakable aversion to the odor of a puppy 
as conveyed by the naked hand. 
The odors of animals appear to be mainly of either a sexual, an 
individual, or a protective character ; the former, usually more marked 
in the male, may be permanent, as in the dog, or confined to the 
rutting season, as with goats. So implicitly do dogs depend on this 
sense that excision of the olfactories in young puppies has resulted 
in a total inability to distinguish sex in after years. 
Individual odors are so minutely analyzed that a hound dis- 
criminates not only between 
species, kindred, sex, harm- 
less and harmful invaders, 
but distinguishes the he- 
reditary enemy, and, in trail- 
ing his leather-shod mas- 
ter across a populous city, 
must encounter myriads of 
tracks so similar that the mind 
pauses in wonder at the deli- 
cacy of this sense, beside 
which our boasted instru- 
ments of precision are rude 
indeed. 
Protective odors may be 
emitted only at the moment 
of provocation, as in Mephitis, 
or may confer a permanent immunity from attack, as in certain in- 
sects. 
As with voice, we find that scent also stimulates the reproductive 
functions. With the male as the active agent in emitting both 
sound and characteristic odor, the role of the female is confined to 
receiving the ensuing auditory and olfactory impressions. She there- 
fore should be found more receptive, more sensitive, more impres- 
sionable to sounds and odors in general. Does not this hold true 
even of our own species ? Is not the use of perfumes a womanly 
habit ? A significant fact in this connection is the use of musk. A 
constituent of practically every perfume manufactured, it adds a 
peculiar zest to what were otherwise mere cloying sweetness. The 
demi-monde alone, however, as a class, are habitually redolent of its 
unadulterated emanations. Now, this odor, the base of every arti- 
ficial olfactory delight, the chosen incense of the votaries of Venus, 
Fig. 7. 12 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
is a typical sexual stimulant, an emanation elaborated primarily as a 
love charm by certain specialized glands of the musk-deer. 
Among primates-man's own class-no such radical variations 
of the respiratory apparatus would seem warranted as have been 
noted among the lower mammals. Let us examine. Geoffroy Saint- 
Hilaire long ago separated the monkeys of the Old World from 
those of the New by nasal peculiarities-the former as catarrhine, 
the latter as platyrrhine. In our illustration (Fig. 6) the golden 
howler of Brazil is contrasted with the rhesius of India. 
Fig. 8. 
Extreme variations of the vocal apparatus are found here close 
to man, of which the great hyoidean drum of the howler (Fig. 7), 
and the immense laryngeal pouches of the male gorilla, reaching 
down to and under the armpits, are examples. The nose itself is 
wide in South American monkeys, thinner in Asiatic ones, flat in 
the anthropoid apes, proboscislike in Nasalis, and widely varied in 
man. 
Projecting far beyond the face in most Caucasians, it may be so 
sunken between prominent cheek bones, as in certain Eskimos de- 
scribed by King, that a ruler will bridge from one cheek to the 
other without touching the nose. Savages and barbarians seem 
superior to the civilized races in keenness of scent. Humboldt's 
assertion that the Peruvians have three distinct words by which to 
designate the odor of the European, the Indian, and the negro re- 
spectively, reveals a delicacy of discrimination (or a pungency of odor) 
beyond our powers. Krafft-Ebing's account of the Swiss libertine 
who confessed to rousing the passions of his victims by the odor of 
his perspiration proves that even man has traces of a sexual odor. 
Compared with vertebrates generally, however, the sense of 
smell in man is poor, even vestigial, and is accompanied by a corre- HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
13 
spending atrophy of the olfactory lobes. Here is a series of mod- 
els-casts of the brain cavities of various vertebrates-in which the 
proportion between olfactory lobes and cerebral hemispheres is well 
shown. 
Beginning with the ornithorhynchus, we note the sudden enlarge- 
ment of the olfactory region in the echidna, its absence in the por- 
poise, its marked prominence in the pig. 
Fig. 9. 
Compare the immense extent of this region in the extinct Dinoce- 
ras-that primitive ungulate whose spinal cord exceeded its brain in 
size-with the same area in our modern horse. Note its great de- 
velopment in the tiger, the expanse of the cerebral hemispheres 
with corresponding diminution of these lobes in the gorilla, and, 
lastly, their vestigial character in man. 
Fig. 10. 
A certain relation between the nasal chamber and the nasal 
bones is found, the latter forming its roof. As has been pointed 
out by an honored member of your society, Dr. Harrison Allen, a 
very long proboscis may, nevertheless, be associated with very short 14 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
nasals, as in the elephant (Fig. 3, g), and very long nasals with a 
short proboscis, as in the pig (Fig. 3,/). Familiar to students of 
human anatomy as paired bones forming a portion of the border of 
the anterior nares, they may develop as a single bone, as in varanian 
lizards, or become a single bone by early ankylosis, as in the orang 
(Fig. 4, «), and frequently in adult life in negroes and other abo- 
rigines. Present in all vertebrates (with the exception of chelonia, 
already noted), yet few of the facial bones offer greater variations 
in location, in relative size, and in shape. 
In the gavial the nasals are far removed from the nares; the 
same is true in chameleons. In porpoises, according to Mivart, they 
occur as " small, rounded masses, each lying in a concavity on the 
frontal bone, and not at all rooting the nasal passages." 
0 
p 
Fig. 11. 
Even in a given species wide variations occur. Here are skulls 
of the lion (Fig. 4, n) and of the tiger (Fig. 4, m). Holden, in a 
note on the comparative osteology of the nasals {Human Osteology, 
seventh London edition, p. 106), says: "The only difference be- 
tween the skulls of a tiger and a lion is that in the lion the upper 
ends of the nasal bones and the nasal processes of the superior 
maxillary bones are on the same level, whereas in the tiger the 
nasal bones run up considerably beyond the nasal processes." 
This is well shown in the skulls before you. But were this 
the only distinction, the osteologist would often be in a quandary, 
as more than once in known specimens of the two skulls have we 
found the limits of the nasals absolutely identical. 
I had intended to touch briefly upon the weight of the nasal bones 
as found in man and in mammals generally, but time has not HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
15 
permitted the assemblage 
of certain proposed data. 
In twelve European 
skulls examined, the weight 
of the right nasal varied 
from thirty centigrammes 
in an adult woman to one 
hundred and thirteen cen- 
tigrammes in another adult 
woman. In seven cases the 
right nasal was the heavier; 
in one, a female of twenty 
years, they were equal; 
in four the left were the 
larger. 
Greatest variation, thir- 
ty-five centigrammes(right) 
and twenty centigrammes 
(left) respectively in a skull 
estimated at nineteen to 
twenty years. Tabulating 
these weights in two series, 
one representing adults 
(over twenty-one years), 
the other series all under 
twenty-one years, we find, 
as would be expected, a 
preponderance of size in 
the older bones. Thus, of 
five adult skulls, the aver- 
age weight of the right 
nasal is centigrammes; 
of the left, 68| centi- 
grammes. In a very an- 
cient cliff-dweller skull 
from New Mexico the na- 
sals weighed respectively, 
right, seventy-four centi- 
grammes ; left, seventy centigrammes. Of the seven younger skulls 
(none of them under fifteen years) the average weight of the right 
nasal is centigrammes ; of the left, centigrammes. In other 
5 
4 
Fig. 12. 
3 
2 
1 16 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
words, while the average weight of the two nasals is centi- 
grammes in the young series, in the adults it is 1431, an additional 
1 
2 
Fig. 13. 
growth of more than sixty-eight per cent, by weight occurring after 
puberty. 
Of the adults, both the heaviest and the lightest nasals found 
were those of women. 
The proportional weight of both nasals to the entire skull as 
found for seven specimens was- 
Young Series. 
Adult Series. 
11111 
1 1 
7021' 702|' 1091' 640' 328 
975' 386 
Truly a wide divergence. Note, however, that in both series those 
having largest nasals in proportion to skulls are male. 
These figures will, of course, be modified by future results. 
Mankind has been classified according to color, geographical 
distribution, ancestry, language, hair, shape of skull and of but- 
tocks, protrusion of jaw, height, political complexion, and religious 
faith. 
Professor Flower has introduced a dental index to the scientific 
world, which seems much more exact in its results than many of 
the indexes heretofore in vogue. To Dr. Paul Broca, the distin- 
guished French anthropologist, do we owe the use of the proportion 
between the maximum width and height of the skeletal nose as a 
classific concept. His method is as follows: The greatest width of 
the anterior nares, multiplied by a hundred, is divided by the dis- 
tance from the anterior spine to the centre of the naso-frontal suture. 
The resultant nasal index varies in Broca's tables from 35*71 (Rus- 
sian) to 72*22 (Bushman, Africa). Three natural groups are demon- HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
17 
strated : The leptorrhini (thin-nosed), index 42 to 48 ; mesorrhini 
(medium-nosed), index 48 to 53 ; and the platyrrhini (broad-nosed), 
index 53 to 58 and above. 
The white race, with the Eskimos, comprise the first group; 
the Mongols and aboriginal Americans the second ; and the black 
races the third. 
Some of these forms are here shown. This fragment (No. 1, 
Fig. 12) is from a European woman, and presents the extraordinary 
nasal index of 30'9. Broca's lowest recorded index is the Russian, 
35'71. Here is another leptorrhine skull, that of a mulatto girl, 
eighteen years of age (No. 3, Fig. 12). " But the negro is platyr- 
rhine," you protest. Granted. Yet, as a rule, the father of a mulatto 
is a white man and leptorrhine. 
Granting this and the further pos- 
tulate that girls usually resemble 
the father, and vice versa, and we 
find her apparently contradictory 
nose accounted for. In this male 
mulatto (No. 4, Fig. 12) from the 
same locality, the entire skull is 
markedly negroid, while the nasal 
index reaches 50, throwing it into 
the mesorrhine division. Of pla- 
tyrrhine skulls we have but one 
or two; this Micronesian, a native of New Ireland (No. 5, Fig. 12), 
is a good example, while this one (No. 1, Fig. 13) shows, in addition 
to the typical nose, a sabre cut cleanly dividing the nasals. (No. 2, 
Fig. 13, shows an abscess of both antrum and nares.) 
So far we have made only post-mortem measurements. The 
vivo-nasal index accomplishes the same end for the living, the great- 
est width between the alae now creeping in. We consequently 
obtain much higher indices and different limits are given to each 
class. 
Still another index, the antero-posterior, is determined thus: 
width : projection anteriorly :: X : 10. The anterior projection of 
the nose is generally in an inverse ratio to the width. Topinard 
enumerates the following essential points of ethnic variation of the 
nose: 
Fig. 14. 
Maximum height ) x , 
" breadth rjansverse 1Ddex- 
" projection ) antero Posteri°r index. 18 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS, 
Lobule 
l distinct (pinched, trilobed varieties) 
non-distinct. 
Ake 
' extending beyond the nares. 
, near together. 
divergent. 
elliptical. 
Shape 
round, 
special. 
Nostrils - 
Their 
plane - 
looking 
downward, 
forward, 
outward, 
backward. 
Direction 
antero posterior. 
of their 
oblique. 
axis 
transverse. 
r Its angle of inclination. 
rectilinear. 
Bridge - 
Direction - 
bent or dinted, 
convex (aquiline), 
concave (retrousse), 
like a roof. 
Shape 
rounded off. 
broad and flat. 
Let us examine a single point, the direction of the axis of the 
nostril. Elliptical and nearly parallel from before backward in the 
1 
2 
3 
Fig. 15. 
4 HUMAN AND COMPARATIVE. 
19 
purest white types, a gradual thickening of the posterior border of 
the nasal septum occurs as we descend the scale, and, as pointed 
out by Topinard, the nostrils, from being placed anteriorly, become 
transverse. 
This is well shown in this mask of the head of a Tasmanian (Fig. 
14), a copy, by the way, of that in the Government Museum of 
Hobart Town, a death-mask of the last representative of this inter- 
esting race, who died in 1876. 
The nostrils, being in relation with the inferior border of the 
anterior nares, may reasonably be supposed to share with this region 
any peculiar ethnic features. To a considerable extent this is true. 
The skulls of all colored races are distinguished from those of whites 
by having this inferior border rounded; the nasal spine is also much 
reduced in size, smooth and blunt, both of which are marked simian 
characteristics, the nasal spine in particular being found only in 
man. I have here skulls of adult mulatto (1) and white (2) women, 
also skulls of negro (3) and of white child (4) at birth, in all of 
which these points are well shown (see Fig. 15). 
My own observations on the deflection of the nasal septum, not 
yet tabulated, extend over about three hundred specimens. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
No. 
zzz 
6 
zzz 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
RACE 
Section 
of Nasal 
Septum Chart, (reduced.) 
No. 23211 
No. 73 
No. 78 
No. 1945 
No. 1530 
No. 1000 
No. 2036 
No. 623 
No. 1895 
r 
A 
L 
"x i 
SEX 
SEX 
SEX 
sex 
sex 
sex 
sex g 
sex $ 
MC£ Aleut. 
RACE Kanaka 
RACE Kanaka 
RACE Maori 
RACE Apache 
RACE Comanche 
RACE Cheyenne 
RACE Choctaw 
RACE Peruvian 
Same chart filled in. From skulls in Army Medical Museum. , 
R=Right side Nos. are those of specimens. 
Left side sex indicated in the usual way. / (Afars)-male, female. 
Fig. 16. 
The following diagrams were sent last Friday and Saturday to 
Washington and to New York. It seemed a saving of time to out- 
line the anterior nares ; then, in making the record, the septum is 20 
NASAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
simply drawn in as it appears when facing the skull. Keeping in 
mind that for this reason the inflections are all reversed, this chart, 
filled in in two or three hours (through the courtesy of Mr. Frederic 
A. Lucas, curator of comparative anatomy of the United States 
National Museum), represents the condition of pretty nearly all the 
septa in the Army Medical Museum at Washington. A section only 
of the blank and of the filled forms is shown in Fig. 16. On the 
original chart about fifty septa were figures. Printed forms, filled 
in this way, express the condition of affairs fairly well, besides 
giving number of specimen, sex, and nationality. 
And now, gentlemen, let me thank you for your kind attention.