Tattoos

Tattoos Introduction: The tattoo has been a form of artistic expression for centuries. The earliest examples of tattooing are from the twelfth century in Egypt. "Tattooing was widely practiced in Micronesia, India, Burma, and Japan"(Brown 2). The word Tattoo was derived from the Polynesian peoples of Tahiti who call them Tattow. These people and their techniques were discovered by James Cook, who encountered them on his first journey around the world. Cook remarked, "both sexes paint their bodies Tattow as it is called in their language, this is done by inlaying the color of black under their skins in such a manner as to be indelible"(Shulka 1). As tattooing grows in popularity and becomes mainstream, so to does the risks and questions into the cleanliness and safety of the procedures. With out proper sterilization techniques the transmission of diseases such as Hepatitis B(HBV) and Hepatitis C(HCV) or even HIV could occur. When a tattoo artist uses the same needles and ink receptacles on multiple customers the transmission of possibly fatal diseases can occur. Some people have allergic reactions to the pigments used for tattoos that can also be dangerous. "As a tattoo, hepatitis, tattoos, tattooing, percent, hiv, students, out, university, spread, shippensburg, transmitted, transmission, survey, population, virus, very, questions, ink, brown, viruses, subject, study, risk, questioning, procedures, people, individuals, fifty, body, been, another, way