ABSTRACT
The skin is vital to interpersonal relationships. It is a vital part of our communications system. If it is destroyed or deranged in any way, ‘unfriendly messages’ are transmitted. Instead of the message, ‘Here is a healthy, harmless member of the human race’, the signal from an abnormal skin is interpreted as announcing, ‘Beware of the contagion’. There is a primitive dislike and distrust of individuals with skin disease or skin deformity. Skin problems seem to engender genuine fear and revulsion, perhaps as a hangover from primitive stages of human development when the avoidance of people with infected of infested skin had a survival advantage.
