CHAP. VI. Of the Fracture of the Nose.
THe Nose is gristly in its lower part, but bony in the upper. Wherefore it suffers no fracture in the gristly part (unless peradventure a Sedes) but only a depression, distorti∣on or contusion. But a fracture often happens to the bony part, and so great a depressi∣on to the inner side, that unless it be provided for by diligent restoring it, the nose will become flat, or wrested aside, whence there will be difficulty of breathing. That this kind of fracture may be restored, that bone which stands too far out, must be pressed down; but that which is deprest, must be lifted up with a spathern, or little stick handsomely fashioned and wrapped about with cotten or a linnen rag, so to avoid pain: Therefore you shall hold the spathern in one hand. and reduce and order it with the other. The bone being restored, directories or tents of a convenient bigness shall be put into the nose; which tents shall be made of spunge, or flax, or a piece of a beasts or sheeps lungs: For these things are soft, and doe not only hinder the bones of the Nose that they fall no more, but also lift them up higher: And then the Nose shall be in some sort stayed with boulsters on each side, even untill the per∣fect agglutination of the bones, lest the figure and straitness should be vitiated and spoiled. I have oft times put golden, silver, and leaden pipes into fractured noses, and fastned them with a thred to the Patients night-cap, which, by one and the same means, kept the bones from being again deprest, gave the matter free passage forth, and nothing hindred the breathing. In the mean time we must see that we do not press the Nose with too strait binding, unless peradven∣ture some other thing perswade; lest they become either too wide, too flat, or crooked. If any wound accompany the fracture, that shall be cured after the same manner; as the wounds of the head. The fracture restored, the following medicin, which hath a faculty to repell and re∣press the defluxion, to strengthen and keep the part in its due posture, and to dry up and waste the matter which hath already fallen down, shall be applyed to the Nose, and all the other dry parts. ℞ thuris, mastiches, boli armeniae, sanguinis draconis, an. ℥ ss. aluminis rochae, resinae pini. an. ʒ ij. pulverisentur subtilissime: Or else, ℞ farinae volatilis ℥ ss. albuminum ovorum quantum sufficit, incor∣porentur simul, & fiat medicamentum.
Neither shall you use any other art to cure the cartilaginous part of the nose being fractu∣red: Wherefore Hippocrates terms that solution of continuity that there happens, A fracture, as if it were in a bone; because he could find no other name more fitly to express it: for a gristle, next to a bone, is the hardest of all the parts of our body. A Callus uses to grow in fractured Noses, unless something hinder within the space of twelve or fifteen dayes.