That this Ambrose Paræus was chief surgeon and nose-mender to Francis the ninth of France , and in high credit with him and the two preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)—and that, except in the slip he made in his story of Taliacotius’s noses, and his manner of setting them on—he was esteemed by the whole college of physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than anyone who had ever taken them in hand.
Now Ambrose Paræus convinced my father, that the true and efficient cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon which Prignitz and Scroderus had wasted so much learning and fine parts⸺was neither this nor that⸺but that the length and goodness of the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the nurse’s breast⸻as the flatness and shortness of puisne noses was to the firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in the hale and lively—which, though happy for the woman, was the undoing of the child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated, and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive ad mensuram suam legitimam ;⸺but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the nurse or mother’s breast—by sinking into it, quoth Paræus , as into so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up, refresh’d, refocillated, and set a growing forever.
I have but two things to observe of Paræus ; first, That he proves and explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of expression:—for which may his soul forever rest in peace!
And, secondly, that besides the systems of Prignitz and Scroderus , which Ambrose Paræus his hypothesis effectually overthrew—it overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and everything in it, except my uncle Toby , quite upside down.