Article from the St. Paul Daily Globe., March 08, 1896, strangly linking the absurdity of Symmes’ theory about a hollow earth with a new theory that the American nostril was becoming smaller with each generation, and that certain doctors feared Americans were becoming a nation of “Mouth Breathers.” Their theory to correct the problem was “to have various parts of the nasal partition cut, sawed or chiseled out… as to make larger apertures for breathing.”
