From the origin of civilization the pursuit of beauty has exemplified the highest order of the human being's quest for achievement, and from the beginning, this pursuit has focused, in part, on perfecting the human form. Freed from much of the time-consuming burden of attending to elemental needs, the present generation seems committed as never before to the reshaping of its own physical proportions. Paradoxically, the skin, positioned at the interface between the organism and its environment, embodies the visible envelope that surrounds pleasingly restructured muscle groups; at the same time it exhibits unsightly lesions produced as a consequence of the fitness program.