For anyone who is prematurely bald or has a receding hairline, hair loss may be a distressing experience. In the event you do not desire to simply take daily medication or have a hair transplant the ideal option usually involves embracing the habit of genetics and time — or even embracing a fashionable buzzcut.
However we could take comfort from the very fact we didn’t live 3,500 years past — when the hottest must have cure for hair thinning entailed rubbing against fat from hippos and ibexes into scalp. By Julius Caesar’s famous comb-over to your salve made from burnt bees, the history of history are littered with spurious remedies which can be as odd since they are smelly.
Snake oils along with bogus balms
The Ebers Papyrus, written in Egypt around 1550 BC, comprises the earliest known prescription for hair thinning: a mixture of iron-oxide, contribute, onion sand honey, and alabaster and fat from several creatures, including snakes, and crocodiles, ibexes, hippos and lions.
Quick forward to early Greece at 420 BC, at which Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, medicated his or her own pate with a mixture of cumin, pigeon droppings, horseradish, and nettles.
Though this did not succeed, the Greek physician failed find a solution much worse than even this rancid mixture.
The unkindest cut of
Within his medical journals, Hippocrates noted that the Persian Army eunuchs guarding the king’s harem failed to undergo baldness should these were castrated before age 25. ‘Eunuchs are not influenced by gout, nor can they become hairless,’ he noted.
Several 2,400 decades after, in March 1995, investigators at Duke University in North Carolina confirmed the excellent doctor’s theory – although they bleakly noted, ‘while castration could possibly be considered a cure (for baldness), it’s not commercially acceptable.’
Compost for your head
Excreta of varied forms have featured heavily in history’s baldness treatments — presumably motivated by the same fertilizing properties hunted by gardeners.
An doctor in early Rome prescribed burning off the genitals with a donkey and blending the ash using an individual’s own urine to produce a paste.
While Aristotle reputedly employed goat’s urine into his own scalp, King Henry VIII was said to prefer dog and horse urine, though some Native American tribes preferred a poultice of chicken or cow manure.
19th century quackery
In the 1850s, the ensuing British Empire reached out into its colonies for the latest hair thinning cure: cold India tea. This is to be rubbed into your scalp using lemon juice. It may well have been a huge improvement on body odor, however it did nothing to hair loss growth.
In the united states, the 19th century has been a time of shameless quackery, using self-styled ‘hair professors’ marketing tonics comprising irritants such as capsicum and cantharides (Spanish fly), that were reported to improve flow to the scalp.
Other hare-brained treatments contained include petroleum, beef marrow, butter, and even mercury and sulfur.
Industrial marvels
The early 20th century saw the production of several suspicious mechanical devices, for example:
That the heat-emitting Thermocap (under which hopeful users will sit for 15 minutes daily )
A shiny glass spout called the Super Marvel
The magically named Xervac – a vacuum-like system that asserted to utilize suction to induce hair development.
At the other end of the spectrum, the developing naturopathy and also ayur-veda moves were embracing a developing set of herbal and plant-based treatments for hair loss. A number of them are still popular today, including castor and coconut oil, coconut milk, fenugreek seeds, licorice roots, lemon seeds, lavender, Beet root, onion juice (there it is again!) , aloe vera and amla (Indian gooseberry).
Some alternative professionals recommend iron-rich food diet plans, head massages — and sometimes even headstands to find the blood flowing to the scalp.
Some of the greatest discoveries of this early 20thcentury nearly stayed hidden. In 1939, Japanese dermatologist Dr. Shoji Okuda successfully pioneered a procedure for grafting hair against the back part of your scalp on patients’ bald spots.
World War II guaranteed that Okuda’s invention remained totally concealed from the world until the 1950s – if hair transplants were popularised with way of a New York doctor, Norman Orentreich.
Today, hair transplants have evolved into a highly complex art, together with ‘follicular unit micrografting’ allowing microscopic transfers of one to three follicles of hair — developing a far more natural appearance compared to the spiky clumps of earlier efforts.
Along with promising research into ‘cloning’ hair from high tech stem cells, chances for prospective sufferers are increasingly hirsute.
Clinical validation
It was only in 1988 that the first drug to become clinically shown to revive hair has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Now, minoxidil is just a household name in Australia, for sale as a cream or foam over the counter at most pharmacies. Originally employed as a tablet to treat high blood pressure, studies have proven the medication can promote hair regrowth in approximately 40 per cent of men after six months. Minoxidil may be applied like a topical cream applied to the entire scalp, or in form, to improve hair.
The most popular prescription medication for male baldness thinning in Australia — and internationally – is Finasteride, which limits the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the male hormone that shrinks hair roots. Offered at Australia since 1998, 1 tablet a day has been shown to detain further hair loss and stimulate partial regrowth up to two-thirds of people.
Regardless of the widespread effectiveness of these drugs, questions linger about their long term usage and possible negative effects — fed by many of populist wellness and consumer websites, but that is a future blog narrative.
Veena's Blog 