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Chapter 11 WHY DIFFERENT SHAPES OF NOSES? WHY So MUCH OR So LITTLE HAIR ON THE BODY OR THE HEAD? My nose is huge, enormous, vast! Listen, poor snub-nose, flat head, addle-pate, Here is an accessory I'm proud to wear; For a large nose betokens a large heart. Symbol of courage and of courtesy, It indicates a nature kind and keen, Witty and warm and liberal-like mine And never one like yours, you stupid oaf! Because your foolish features are as bare Of pride, of passion, and of purity, Of inspiration, even of a noseAs that on which I now will plant my boot! Cyrano de Bergerac EdmondRostarzd1 One of my friends has a large, convex, highly bridged and curved nose. When he was a graduate student years ago, he visited a biochemical laboratory in Detroit. The man who was in charge of the laboratory was a Jew who seemed to have a stereotypic view of what Jews are supposed to look like, for at the end of the visit, pointing to his own nose, he asked one of his colleagues, also a Jew, if my friend was "one of us." Well, my friend was not "one of them," for there are many people throughout the world who have noses like his and are not Jewish. This type of nose is found among much of the Middle Eastern population, especially in the mountain regions lying between Israel and India; in Afghanistan, for example. But this type of nose is also found In parts of the world other than the Middle East: in the British Isles 91 92 Alain Corcos among the Scots, in North America among Indians, in the Bavarian mountains of Germany, and in Italy where, in a less accentuated form, it is called a Roman nose. Our noses-distinct features of our faces and personalities, if we believe Cyrano-are good examples of a structure in which bone and soft tissue combine to produce a highly varied and often irregular outline. The upper half of the nose is a long, bony protuberance covered by a uniform and rather thin layer of tissue. The lower half is composed of cartilage and some fatty tissue. The bony portion of the nose has two parts: the root, which is the portion lying between the eyes, and the bridge, which continues down the junction with the cartilaginous portion. The extent to which the root of the nose projects forward is remarkably variable. The bridge has its own variations. It can simply continue the profile of the root or curve forward in a hump, drooping a little at the end. The bridge may be distinctly wider than the root. The lowest part of the nose includes the tip and the two wings that surround the nostrils. The shape of the nasal tip is roughly spherical and varies greatly in size. A small tip makes the nose appear pointed; a large tip makes it appear rounded or blunt in outline, and makes it look knobby from the front. The combination of root, bridge and tip variations produces a virtually infinite variety of shapes. Europeans tend to have noses with prominent bridges and a cartilaginous part that is not quite equal in dimension, so that the general profile of the nose is convex. Asians tend to have noses with a low root and a bridge that continues the line of the root, and with a tip of modest size so that the whole nose is low lying and straight. Africans tend to have noses that have a moderately low root, which are short from top to bottom and relatively wide across the wings. The above paragraph contains a description of nose types that populations tend to have. In fact, our noses vary a great deal in size and shape; no one shape or form is possessed typically by any single human group. Scientists, who always feel confident when they are able to measure things, have invented the nasal index (a ratio of the length to the width of the nose) to describe the shape of a nose. For example, an index of 104 would describe a nose slightly wider at the nostrils than it is long. Such an index is found not only among the pygmies of the Iteri forest region in central Africa but also among Australian aborigines. Narrower noses, represented by low indices (85 and below), are found among many groups throughout the world: American Indians, North Africans, Europeans...

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