Med Center Receives Unrestricted Grant
DR. BUSSE ACCEPTS FOR MEDICAL CENTER—On behalf of the American Medical
Association, Durham's Dr. James E. Davis, right, president of the North Carolina
Medical Society, recently presented a $5,048 unrestricted grant to the medical center.
(Photo by Thad Sparks)
The American Medical Association
(AMA) Education and Research
Foundation has awarded a $5,048
grant to the medical center.
The grant is unrestricted; it may be
used for any purpose the center
wishes, including scholarships,
salaries and building programs.
Dr. James E. Davis of Durham,
president of the North Carolina
Medical Society, presented the check
in the AMA’s behalf on July 24 to Dr.
Ewald W. Busse, director of medical
and allied health education at Duke.
This gift brings to $143,305 the
total amount of unrestricted funds
given to Duke by the Education and
Research Foundation since 1957.
Money for the foundation comes
primarily from medical auxiliaries
and physicians throughout the
nation. This year, the organization
earmarked $1.02 million dollars for
grants to medical schools. About 75
per ttnt of this amount came from
the Woman’s Auxiliary to the AMA.
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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 29
AUGUST 1,1975
DURHAM, NORTH CAROUNA
^Outy Out Damned Spof
The Tattoo: A Vanishing Fad
By Joe Sigler
Dr. John Tindall thinks that tatoos
may not be as popular as they once
were. At least he doesn’t see as many
as he used to.
But when he does, the people
almost always want the same
thing—to get rid of them.
Tindall, a dermatologist,
introduced some of his fellow
physicians to a short course on
“Tattoos, Tattooers and Tattooists”
in Atlantic Beach July 18.
A speaker at Duke’s annual
Medical Post Graduate Course here,
Tindall traced the long history of
tattooing and illustrated his talk with
a collection of slides.
Tattoo comes from the Tahitian
word “tatan,” to mark, Tindall
explained, and it was from South
Seas islanders who were taken to
Europe in the 18th Century that the
custom was introduced on the
Continent. But tattooing dates at
least back as far as Egyptian
mummies, he added.
In the late I800’s, he said, tattooing
caught on among Europeans and the
English, particularly in the
aristocratic set.
“Winston Churchill’s mother had
one on her wrist,” Tindall said. He
couldn’t recall the design, but he
added, “She kept it covered by a
bracelet in later life.”
Between the turn of the century
and World War I, Tindall said,
tattooing went out of vogue among
the aristocracy and has never
regained its popularity among that
class.
“In France tattoos were popular
among the criminal element, and
they were popular among prostitutes
in Germany, for reasons obscure to
me,” the dKtor said.
Tindall displayed an early
tattooing instrument, a walrus tusk
that had a hole in the end for holding
a rat’s tooth. The rat’s tooth would be
dipped into the oxides and sulfides of
various metals that give tattoos their
coloration and the skin would be
pricked with the tooth to implant the
color.
The same principle is used today,
but the tattooing instruments for
pricking the skin are more
sophisticated.
Tattoos are made by multiple
needle pricks just under the
epidermis, the uppermost layer of
skin. Over the next three or four
years, the pigments migrate deeper
and deeper into the skin.
If someone decides to have a tattoo
removed within the first week or two
after getting it, Tindall said results
are usually satisfactory.
“But after about a month,” he said,
“it’s almost impossible to remove
them without leaving a scar.”
One technique, he explained, is
called salabrasion. Table salt is
rubbed into the skin with a gauze pad
until the surface skin is removed and
skin begins to “weep.” The technique
is repeated over a period of time.
The salt draws fluids up out of the
skin, and with the fluids come the
tattoo colorations, or at least some of
them, Tindall said.
“Old bosun’s mates used the
technique in the Navy,” Tindall
explained, “and it took doctors a l®ng
time to find out about it.”
In the old days people could get a
little of everything from warts to
tuberculosis to syphilis in tattoo
parlors, the doctor said.
“The tattooer used to lick the
needle while he was putting on the
design,” he said, “and if he had TB or
syphilis, you could pick it up from
him.”
Health laws are strict on tattooers
(Continued on page 2)
A TOOTH FOR TATTOOING—Or. John Tindall shows off his antique v^lrus tooth,
which was once used in combination with a rat's tooth for inserting colorful
pigments into the skin in the making of tatoos. (Photo by Margaret Howell)