Apply directly to the forehead: Holmes, Nana, and hennapecia.

There is nothing men will not do, there is nothing they have not done, to recover their health. .. They have submitted to be half-drowned in water, and half-choked with gases, to be buried up to their chins in earth, to be seared with hot irons like galley-slaves, to be crimped with knives, like cod-fish, to have needles thrust into their flesh, and bonfires kindled on their skin, to swallow all sorts of abominations, and to pay for all this, as if to be singed and scalded were costly privilege, as if blisters were a blessing, and leeches were a luxury. BRANDED BY HENNA Were Dr. Holmes to observe bodily mischief today, he'd still find needles thrust without cause into flesh and bonfires needlessly kindled on the skin. But, nowadays, the injuries are far less likely to be inflicted on the sick in search of health than on the vain in search of fashion. Botox bruises the foreheads of matrons, colla-gen scars the lips of barflies. Steel grommets hang from the navels of nymphets, bolts pierce the lips of perps. Perhaps the broadest practice, however, is the direct application of henna directly to hair and skin. This global assault has produced rock concerts that resemble the coming of age in Samoa and turned South Beach into the South Pacific. Warriors of the NFL sport body tattoos that put Papua to shame, while trendy folk in SoHo flaunt the umbilical baroque. If the Belle E ´ poque was the Age of Gold, ours has become the Age of Tool and Dye. Yet the medical literature documents that neither body piercing nor henna is all that safe (2, 3). Injuries provoked by cosmetic intrusion spare no age, no gender, no color, no class. Even the very young fall victim, as in a recent new item headlined " SCARRED CHILDREN: " Michelle Lolk, of River Edge, took her 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son to a tattoo shop this past summer for their first-ever temporary tattoos. Young Ethan got a cross on his arm. His sister, Olivia, got a dolphin on her belly. A day later, Olivia complained of severe pain. " It looked like she was branded with a poker, " Lolk said (4). Skin branding of this sort (bonfires kindled on their skin, as Dr. Holmes might say) is due to acute contact dermatitis induced by henna's active agent, lawsone (2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone) and …