Although hair
loss is regarded as a modern day problem nothing could be further from the
truth. The ancient Egyptians were searching for a cure over four thousand
years ago. The bible also has a few mentions of hair loss within its pages.
Hair loss. it’s problems and the search for a cure is not anything new. For
thousands of years, men and women of all countries and races have shared the
tragedy of premature hair loss and the hope of discovering a cure. There is
indeed a vast fortune just waiting to be collected for anyone finding the
elusive cure.
Hair Loss and the Bible
One of the earliest mentions of hair loss is in the bible, below are a few
instances.
Kings 2: 23 From there Elisha went to Bethel. As he was walking along the
road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you
baldhead!" they said "go on up, you baldhead!" He turned round, looked at
them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears
came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. And he went on to
Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.
Leviticus 13: 40-41 When a man has lost his hair and he is bald, he is
clean. If he has lost his hair from the front of scalp and has a bald
forehead, he is clean.
Numbers 6: 1-21 The Nazarites had special rules regarding treatment of hair.
Grey hair is also mentioned in the bible.
Proverbs 16: 31 Grey hair is a crown of splendour; it is attained by a
righteous life.
Proverbs 20: 29 The glory of young men is their strength, grey hair the
splendour of the old.
Egyptians to Persians
In the ancient Middle East hair loss was regarded as shameful. It symbolised
the public announcement of the loss of a mans virility. Samson who lost all
his hair, also, well documented in the bible, showed that his head full of
hair was not only a symbol, it was also considered the actual source of his
power and strength, which he lost when it was cut off by the Philistines,
and not by Delilah as most people claim.
In Ancient Egypt, wigs were serious business. The head was shaved for
cleanliness, and presumably for coolness, and wigs were worn as protection
from the sun and as a sign of regal status. All Pharaohs were buried with
lavish head gear for wearing in the afterlife.
The Egyptians, Romans and Greeks spent fortunes on salves and ointments
which they hoped would grow hair or at least help stop hair loss.
The following dates back to the Egyptian times:
Remedy for Hair Growth prepared for
Ses, Mother of his Majesty the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Teta, deceased
Toes-of-a-Dog
Refuse-of-Dates
Hoof-of-an-Ass
Another ancient remedy used to prevent grey hairs
Blood-from-the-neck-of-the-Gabgu-Bird
Put in real balsam and rub therewith.
"The Papyrus Embers"
1500BC
Hair fashions change rapidly and usually without any rational pattern. Hair
styles that out of favour with current fashion often evoke unexpectedly
strong emotions and attempts to outlaw them are common.
Ancient Persian men considered a shaved face as absurd, but their
contemporaries, the Hittites, shaved their beards, moustache, eyebrows and
patches of hair near the temples. The Celts often shaved their beards but
not their moustaches. Ancient Greeks wore beards and wore long hair but in
the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great ordered his soldiers to shave beards
and keep head hair short.
The Roman's
Roman law once required prostitutes to wear blonde wigs, but the Emperor
Claudius's wife, Messalina, wore a yellow wig on her nightly outings. The
regulation was repealed and blonde wigs became the fashion of the day. The
Romans generally shaved for about 500 years, but around the year 200 beards
reappeared.
This lasted until Charlemargne in the year 800 ordered his subjects, most of
Western Europe, to shave. Beards started to return but the Bishop of Rouen
warned in 1096 that men with beards were in danger of damnation.
Legend has it that Caesar became so worried and embarrassed about his
baldness that he used to wear his ceremonial laurel wreaths constantly to
try and hide it. Caesar also had his defeated enemy's hair cut off as a sign
of submission when they were conquered.
One form of hair loss Alopectia Areata ( small bald patches that can
sometimes appear and disappear for no reason) is actually derived from the
Greek word for "Mangy Fox".
In 400 B.C. Hippocrates the Father of Medicine prescribed a mixture of
cumin, pigeon droppings, horseradish and beetroots or nettles, to help
prevent hair loss. Needless to say he as well as his patients remained
absolutely bald.
The Middle Ages
In the middle ages eunuchs always had full heads of hair. Eunuchs are males
who have been castrated (had their testicles removed), and if this was done
before puberty they do not go bald. Some eunuchs who when given male hormone
did not have increased hair loss.
This means that an adequate level of male hormone need only be present for
male pattern baldness to occur in susceptible men, thus destroying the
popular myth (with bald men at least) that bald men are more virile, because
it was assumed that they had more male hormone.
Aristotle also noted that neither Eunuchs nor women grew hairs on theirs
chests, he proposed that this was due to the lack of testes.
Hair has been adorned since man first appeared, from bones in the hair of
cavemen to feathers in the heads of North American Indians. Colouring of the
hair has also been around since the ancient Egyptians and the Assyrian's. It
is certainly not a modern day fashion as most people like to think.
In the 1500's men's head hair was cut short but beards flourished. Women
generally braided their hair many married women revived the Orthodox Jewish
custom of only showing their hair to their husbands.
In later cultures wigs were worn mainly by women, then in 1624 Louis XIII of
France launched the era of the big wig - by wearing one. The fashion held
sway in Europe and its colonies until the American and French revolutions
swept away such symbols of rank.
Shakespeare in nearly all his tragedies used hair loss to portray an ageing
king, fool or villain - Never a virile young man.
A bit ironic, considering that Shakespeare himself was bald.
In Britain by the 1700's men who were losing their hair also seemed to be
losing their minds! They began to over compensate for their thinning and
balding by taking the drastic step of wearing long, curly, powdered wigs.
Up to the beginning of this century men wearing wigs was certainly not
thought of as odd but nowadays this is rarely acceptable except on
barristers and judges, where it is still part of an age old tradition.
The Cowboy Years
Even in America in the 1800's tough and hardened cowboys lined up to spend
their hard earned money on worthless "Snake Oil", hair growing tonics
peddled by charlatan "Doctors" from the side shows and stages of the great
wild west medicine shows.
Cowboys also used the trick of rubbing grease into their hair, causing it to
look thicker, whilst slightly effective it was a very messy process.
Another ancient belief as illustrated by the story of Samson, was that when
you took the hair of an enemy you also took possession of his strength and
courage - An Indian warrior with the greatest number of scalps hanging from
his wigwam was a very powerful man indeed.
The following is an old remedy for hair loss, dating back to cowboy times
Peach Tree
If the kernels be bruised
and boiled in vinegar until
they become thick and
applied to the head,
marvellously, make the hair grow
again upon bald places or
where it is too thin.
Culpepper 1653
Modern Times
So does hair loss affect man today as much as it did in years gone by?
Considering the pressures we face living in a highly competitive, youth
orientated and grooming conscious society, hair loss probably affects us
even more today both at work and in our social lives than ever before.
The problem is that our high technology culture has made virtually no
progress in finding a true lotion or pill cure for hair loss that can be
taken internally or applied externally, even today the lotions and potions
we are offered have little more success than those offered to the ancient
Egyptian's.
What is worse is that some of today's more intelligent men who are stressed
out by suffering hair loss are often just as likely to believe the claims
made for worthless solutions and treatments as these cowboys of yesteryear.
This is largely due to the advertising hype that is produced in the hair
treatment business and as the hair product industry is a multi - million
pound industry with huge advertising budgets it is fairly easy to be carried
away with all the colourful brochures and advertising bumph that promises
instant sex appeal and change of personality once someone's hair returns.
Most of the brochures show that as soon as hair is restored there is a woman
at the man's side. This unfortunately is not true in real life but it
certainly does appear to help sell the product.
Hair today continues to be expressive of ideas - a full head of hair is
considered a sign of youth and vigour, thus wigs, toupee's and hair
transplants are likely to be with us well into the 21st century - and
beyond.
In the United Kingdom there are a large number of laymen owned hair clinics
and so called hair consultants without any experience who sell worthless
scalp massages, hair growth lotions and pills or even ultraviolet ray
treatment that they claim will help grow hair and stop or slow down the rate
of hair loss.
Of course the only real truth found in these clinics is their financial
success. The sad fact of the matter is that men today who suffer from hair
loss are usually so intent on finding a solution, they'll try almost
anything.
It's not that they're looking for some fountain of youth. They're just tired
of hair loss making them look ten to fifteen years older than they really
are, and they are committed to doing something decisive and positive about
it.
Some men are quite artistic with their remaining hair, growing it longer
where possible and brushing it sideways to cover up gaps, a technique that
doesn't stand up to strong winds or vigorous exercise.
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