History
In the 1950s and 60s (and, to lesser extent, currently) a facial mole was known as a "beauty mark" when it appeared in certain spots on a woman’s face. Examples include Marilyn Monroe, model Cindy Crawford, singer Madonna, and the fictional Ms. Pac-Man. Madonna's facial mole—below her right nostril—has been surgically removed. Almost everybody has at least one or two moles somewhere on his or her body, while large numbers can be concentrated on the back, chest, and arms. Although they can be less noticeable because of the similar colors of the surrounding skin, darker skin shades have equivalent incidences of moles to lighter skin shades. Some folklore about moles includes the notion that picking at a mole can cause it to become cancerous or grow back larger. While chronic picking or irritation (by clothing) of a mole can be detrimental in many ways, it has not been associated with a higher incidence of cancer. It is recommended by physicians that a dermatologist examines a mole to see if it should be removed. The dermatologist or plastic surgeon can perform the procedure with an eye toward preventing a larger scar.
Read more about this topic: Melanocytic Nevus
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)