TATTOOING FOR HEALTH

Hokitika Guardian, 2 July 1930, Page 5

TATTOOING FOR HEALTH

A SOLDIER’S EVIDENCE ’V. .ft!

; LONDON, May 22. In. the current issue of the British Medical Journal Dr. Rose Jordau, of Oatford, raises tlie question as to whether tattooing gives protection aguiiist disease. ft “A man, aged 25, recently presented himself for examination at the tuberculosis dispensary as a contact ,of his , brother, who had contracted pulmonary tuberculosis,” Dr Jordan writes. “He was in excellent health, muscular, and in good condition. He had served eight years in the army and had spent seven of them in India. Both his arms were elaborately tattooed in red and blue.

“One of the reasons lie gave for having submitted himself to this decorative art was that it gave protecting against infectious diseases. He told me that soldiers with welltattooed bodies rarely went sick. “Is this,” asks Dir Jordan, “merely a superstition, or does the impregnaion of the skin by those dyes really afford any protection against tropical diseases?”

“We do not know what the medical profession think's of this original claim,” comments the “Morning Post” but “doubtless it will suggest an interesting line of research to some budding specialist in tropical complaints. He may find that the African witch doctors, the tribal chiefs of Polynesia, and the Red Indian braves knew a thing or two about disease which wc moderns have never even suspected. What, after all are many of the patent medicines of the present day but so many charms to keep away the evil spirits’ of hypocluiondria and fear, which kill more people that fall victims to miscrobes ? A lot could be said in defence of superstition. The desire to ward off ‘evil spirits’ never really dies; but the methods adopted change from age to age. We only class as ‘superstitions those methods which happen to be out of fashion.” The question would seem to be one of particular interest to thiose who have made a close study of the Maori race.