The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose and a large penis.  “Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro,” stated Ovid.  This belief continued to prevail, especially in Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g., the quotations and references given by J.N.  Mackenzie, “Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus in Man.” Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, No. 82, January, 1898; also Hagen, Sexuelle Osphresiologie, pp. 15-19.) A similar belief as to the association between the sexual impulse in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in the sixteenth century, for in Massinger’s Emperor of the East (Act II, Scene I) we read,

        “Her nose, which by its length assures me
        Of storms at midnight if I fail to pay her
        The tribute she expects.”

    At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still
    embodies the belief in the connection between a large nose and a
    large sexual member.

The probability that such an association tends in many cases to prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when more careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the testimony of various modern observers, although it does not appear that any series of exact observations have yet been made.

It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study of criminals (I Caratteri dei Delinquenti), found no class of criminals with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the nose and anomalies of the genital organs as sexual offenders.

However this may be, it is less doubtful that there is a very intimate relation both in men and women between the olfactory mucous membrane of the nose and the whole genital apparatus, that they frequently show a sympathetic action, that influences acting on the genital sphere will affect the nose, and occasionally, it is probable, influences acting on the nose reflexly affect the genital sphere.  To discuss these relationships would here be out of place, since specialists are not altogether in agreement concerning the matter.  A few are inclined to regard the association as extremely intimate, so that each region is sensitive even to slight stimuli applied to the other region, while, on the other hand, many authorities ignore altogether the question of the relationship.  It would appear, however, that there really is, in a considerable number of people at all events, a reflex connection of this kind.  It has especially been noted that in many cases congestion of the nose precedes menstruation.