Medicine: As Plain As . . .

British Author William Gerhardi once won the favor of a lady by telling the tale of a man who: 1) sliced off his nose while shaving; 2) dropped the razor, which cut off his big toe; 3) in his confusion switched the severed parts, so that ever afterward, whenever he blew his nose, his shoe flew off.

In Rio de Janeiro, 36-year-old José Lourival de Santana had no such luck. José’s nose had been neatly amputated by a burglar’s well-aimed razor slash. He was rushed to a hospital. A tidy policeman dropped the nose into a garbage can. Young Dr. Paulo Marques de Souza thought José’s nose could be saved. First it had to be found. It was—after six hours among the garbage.

Surgeon de Souza cleansed the nose, pared the edges, which had already begun to wither, made a circular cut in the patient’s abdomen, buried the nose under four layers of tissue, then sewed up the incision. To Rio newsmen he explained that: 1) stomach tissues would provide better nourishment; 2) if the nose had become contaminated, it was easier to fight infection in the abdomen.

But the nose died. Sadly, Surgeon de Souza explained: too much time had elapsed between the injury and the operation. Hopefully, he offered to carve a new nose from José’s hip and graft it on his face. José shook his head, he murmured: “Perhaps some day I will kill that burglar. When the judge asks me why, it will be as plain as. . . .”