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History
of Hair Loss Treatments
Before modern science gave birth to hair transplants, man has tried thousands of remedies to stave off baldness. The ancient Chinese rubbed safflower oil on their scalps; medieval Europeans drank mandrake root, while Native Americans used aloe to stop hair loss.
Marx may say what he likes about the progression of history being marked by class struggles, but every man knows that history is marked by more hairy struggles than social ones. Throughout antiquity, every civilization has wrestled with recalcitrant hair follicles.
In
ancient Egypt, bald was certainly not beautiful. The Ebers medical papyrus
--a 60-foot-long, 16th-century B.C. Egyptian scroll now in the Egyptian
Museum in Leipzig, Germany-- lists hundreds of cures for various maladies,
including baldness. According to the papyrus, to resuscitate his hair,
a man should pound the beans of the castor-oil plant, soak the paste in
oil and then massage his skull with the mixture.
Another 16th-century Egyptian document, the Hearst Papyrus, gives another remedy: mix ground wheat, honey and oil, boil the mixture and then apply it to the bald patch.
Ancient Egyptian women also valued dark, flowing tresses. The papyrus councils women to wash out tiresome gray hairs with the boiled blood of a black ox --or to grind up the black horn of a gazelle, mix it with sweet-- smelling oil and lather it on the scalp.
The Ebers papyrus even offers advice on taking care of your arch-enemy's hair: steep boiled lotus leaves in oil or fat and secretly rub the unguent on your foe's head. Her (or his) hair will fall out. Now, if only someone had told Yul Brynner while he was filming the Ten Commandments.