PERSONAL APPEARANCES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. 7 1 



bruise undergoes, from purplish-red to green, orange, and 

 yellow, is due to the changes taking place in the colouring 

 matter of the effused blood, whilst this is being very 

 gradually absorbed. All schoolboys must have enjoyed 

 opportunities of observing these colour-changes in the 

 familiar " black eye." 



Tattooing consists in the insertion into the true skin of 

 some pigment as charcoal, gunpowder, &c., by means of 

 punctures made in the skin and the rubbing in of the 

 particles. Once inserted there the pigment remains, and 

 the tattoo-mark cannot be removed by any means short 

 of excision. The accompanying sketch (Fig. 14) is from 

 a microscopical specimen of a piece of skin from a 

 highly-tattooed arm. Observe that the pigment is not 

 contained in the epidermal cells, but is collected in little 

 heaps and masses between the bundles of tissue that form 

 the dense cutis. To remove them by simply rubbing the 

 cuticle off, or raising a blister, will not suffice ; and as a 

 considerable amount of tissue would have to be taken 

 away, a scar must ensue. Hence it may be laid down as 

 a rule, without exception, that no tattoo-mark can be 

 removed without leaving a scar to indicate the place it 

 formerly occupied. 



The whiteness of scars depends on the fact that the 

 middle layer of the skin (or at any rate those constituents 

 of it which contain pigment), is not reproduced with the 



