in sede & conspicua collocari, membra vero genitalia, instar vile pecus in stabula, locum vilem, & depressum detrudi jussit."

In the fifth chapter, which treats of the dignity of noses, we meet with a laboured description of the deformity resulting from the mutilation of this important feature. When the nose is cut off, we are told, "that the gulphs and recesses of the inward parts are disclosed; vast vacuities open, and caverns dark as the cave of Trophonius; to the dismay and terror of the beholders."*

"There is besides," says Taliacotius, "something august and regal in the nose, either because it is the sign of coporeal beauty and mental perfection, or because it denotes some peculiar aptness and wisdom in governing. So the Persians admire an

* Etenim narium apice abscisso, panduntur sinus & partium internarum recessus, vasti patent hiatus, & caverne, instar antri Trophonii obscure; horrendum certe & abominandum aspicientibus spectaculum.

Lib. i. chap. va

aquiline nose in their king: so in the Old Testament, those who had too small, or too large, or a distorted nose, were excluded from the priesthood, and the sacrifices. Such is the dignity attributed to the nose, that those who are deprived of it are not admitted to the functions of government;" which he confirms by historical examples, from the dismal narratives of Josephus. "The nose, therefore, is of such estimation," he concludes, "that upon the beauty and configuration thereof depend the highest ecclesiastical dignities, the noblest governments, and the most extensive kingdoms.* Besides, the nose chiefly distinguishes one individual from another; wherefore Æneas could hardly recognize Deiphobus, when he encountered him in the shades without his nose,'' which he had lost, like many of Taliacotius's friends, by means of his Helen; as Cassandra complains in Seneca;

*Nasus ergo tantæ est estimationis, ut ex ejus decore, ornatuque, summa Sacerdotia, amplissima imperia, et regna latissima pendere videantur.

Ibid.

-incertos geris

Deïphobe vultus, conjugis munus nova.

He then shews, that the threat of cutting off the noses and ears of sinners is used in scripture, to denote the utmost degree of desolation and infamy, and he touches slightly on the doctrine of the Pythagoreans respecting the nose; that nature has expressed in the formation of this feature, the Monade and the Dyade, by connecting the two nostrils by a common bridge; an observation from which those pompous triflers draw fantastical ideas of the power of certain numbers. We are next told, that the Egyptians used the nose as a hieroglyphic to signify a wise man; after which follow the Latin phrases, which depend on this figure. The chapter is concluded by the physiognomonic doctrine of the nose, on which Mr. Lavater has left nothing unsaid.

The obscurity under which Taliacotius's brilliant discoveries on the union of living

parts have remained, is not more remarkable

than its cause it was occasioned by the jest of a Dutchman. The contemptible story which Butler has versified, in his well known lines, was forged by Van Helmont, and obtained such currency through Europe, that even the Testimony of Ambrose Paré in favour of Taliacotius was disregarded.*

The real process employed by this great man, in supplying deficient or mutilated parts, consisted in taking the additional substance from the patient's own arm. That his attempts were successful, we have ample testimony in the writings of Paré and other surgeons, though his method seems not to have been adopted by any of them, I shall try to give the reader a general idea of this curious operation, with the view of rescuing the memory of a man of genius

So completely unfounded is Van Helmont's story, that Taliacotius (lib. i. chap. xviii,) has considered the question formally, whether the supplementary part ought to be taken from the patient himself, or from another person, and has decided for the former,

from the most galling of evils, the successful misrepresentations of stupid malignity.

When the mutilation of the nose was to be repaired, the artist fixed on a sufficient portion of skin on the inside of the arm, about half way between the shoulder and the elbow. This was pinched up with a pair of blunt forceps, and separated on three sides from the other integuments, and from the muscles beneath, so as to form an oblong slip, remaining connected at one end to the rest of the skin, which Taliacotius calls the root of the slip. The edges of the nasal stump were afterwards pared with a scalpel, and the edge of the new slip was attached to them by sutures;* the arm being bound up to the face and head, by a curious apparatus, which my author has elaborately described. The

*This part of the operation was delayed, till the first inflammatory symptoms in the arm, oc, casioned by the excision of the slip, had subsided. If the operation should ever be revived, this cruel and unnecessary interruption would certainly be avoided.