Tattooing among civilized people : Read before the Anthropological Society of Washington, December 19, 1882 / By Robert Fletcher.

  • Fletcher, Robert, 1823-1912.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tattooing among civilized people : Read before the Anthropological Society of Washington, December 19, 1882 / By Robert Fletcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    5. Mixed tattooing. Throughout Europe the combination of pricking and the hypodermic method is employed. In New Zealand, and among some African and Algerian tribes, the process by incision and by pricking are both used. In the Marquesas isles the method by pricking and by ulceration are combined in some cases. This ethnic distribution by methods is so curious and original that, although not immediately a part of our subject, it needs no apology for its introduction. A few words must be said upon the question of the indebility of tattoo-marks, although its interest is principally from the medico- legal side, and it is in that connection that numerous experiments have been made. Caspar, of Berlin, was among the first to inves- tigate the subject, and the result of his inquiries was that in thirty- seven cases he found six in which the marks had completely disap- peared, while in one case, in which fifty-four years had passed, the design was still perfectly visible. Some time later Hutin, in France, examining invalid soldiers found 506, out of 3,000, who declared themselves to have been tattooed. A careful examination produced this result: Very apparent after the lapse of from 4 to 65 years 342 Partly effaced after the lapse of from 10 to 64 years 117 Completely effaced after the lapse of from 28 to 60 years 47 Total 506 Tardieu made some examinations at the hospital La Riboisiere; of 92 designs or inscriptions, he found : 57 were very apparent. 21 were partly effaced. 14 had entirely disappeared. It is not the lapse of time, however, which causes the disappear- ance of the marks, but the slight depth of the pricking or incision, the nature of the coloring matter, and the frequent friction on the skin which some trades necessitate. If the tattooing be quite super- ficial, penetrating the epidermis only, it is no unusual thing for it to disappear entirely in a short time. Vermilion and the vegetable blues are much less enduring than black, so that a part of a design is often preserved when the rest of it is entirely gone. Thus, of a soldier, there may be nothing left but helmet, sword, coat, and