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Nose jobs through the years
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Jacques Joseph, a Berlin surgeon who became known as the father of modern facial plastic surgery, performed his first such procedure in 1896 on a young boy who refused to attend school because he was ridiculed by classmates for his large, protruding ears.
Two years later, the Prussian-born surgeon performed a rhinoplasty on a 28-year-old man "whose extremely large nose caused him such embarrassment that he could not bear to appear in public," according to the American Academy of Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery.
What set Joseph apart from other physicians at the time was his belief that the psychological aspect of aesthetic surgery was as important as its physical success.
Sander Gilman examines this psychological impact in his 2000 book, "Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery."
In many respects, the nose was considered the main cultural identifier. The first intranasal rhinoplasty by John Orlando Roe in 1887 in Rochester, N.Y., was done to change the appearance of the pug nose, which branded immigrants as Irish.
Joseph, the son of a rabbi, performed many rhinoplasties on people whom he said "suffered from a 'Jewish' nose," going so far as providing his services for free to the poor.
According to his theory, a person whose looks caused social or economic disadvantage was as severely afflicted as a person who suffered from a debilitating disease. He called the desire to look normal "anti-dysplasia," not vanity, according to the academy.
Plastic surgery thrived during the Vietnam war, Gilman writes, as Vietnamese women transformed their bodies and faces to look more "Western" to attract American husbands. The industry collapsed once the war was over.
Interestingly, the much disdained Irish pug nose made a comeback in the 1960s as the nose of choice for rhinoplasty patients.
Barbra Streisand, of course, became a rebel keeping her distinctive proboscis, perhaps leading a wave of multiculturalism in which ethnic groups are beginning to assert their differences.
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