Ozæna

Ozæna (Gr. ozē, 'a stench') is generally used of all diseased conditions of the nose accompanied by great fetor of the breath. This may arise from the ulcerations occurring in tubercular or syphilitic disease, or in lupus; from malignant disease; from necrosed bone; or from the presence of a foreign body. But it also occurs where none of these causes is present; and to this form of disease the term is limited by some recent writers (Fränkel, Morell Mackenzie, and others). In these cases there is a peculiar form of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the nose, called dry catarrh, in which the morbid secretion accumulates in the form of crusts in the nasal cavity. This may occasion comparatively little inconvenience, till it leads, as it often does, to the occurrence of an offensive and characteristic odour, the precise cause of which has not been ascertained. It is a very chronic and troublesome disease; but much relief is obtained by the frequent use of alkaline and antiseptic washes or sprays. An arrangement devised by Gottstein renders the secretion moist, and so keeps the fetor in abeyance—the introduction of a plug of cotton-wool, which is worn in each nostril for a few hours daily.