"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 Jose Lourival de Santana had no such luck. Jose'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 Jose'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 Jose's hip and graft it on his face. Jose 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. . . ."

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