The search for an effective hair loss treatment has gone on for ages, since time immemorial. There are many cases wherein people have created strange concoctions that are said to be the cure for hair loss problems. Many of these invented cures are not effective at all. Today, technology has helped us find truly effective treatments to baldness. Some people think that the modern day hair loss remedies are strange and extreme, but if one compares these treatments to those that were made in the past, they will gain a good perspective about these them.
Here are a few of the top historical hair loss treatments invented in the past:
1. Ancient Egypt
In Egypt, if you suffered from hair thinning, there was a multi-step process that you had to go through to treat the baldness. Before anything else, you will need to cover you head with an indigenously made item while going through the multi-step process. The steps involved uttering an incantation to the Egyptian god, Ra, and drinking a magical potion made of honey, onions, alabaster, red lead and iron. Truthfully, this concoction cannot cure hair loss and is, in fact, potentially fatal.
2. Ancient Rome
In our time today, many people do the comb-over as a way to deal with hair thinning. The comb-over is when a person suffering from hair thinning lets grows his remaining hair as long as possible and plasters it over the balding areas. This is a style sported by many of today’s most influential people. The comb-over was actually started way back in ancient Rome, by none other than Julius Caesar. Obviously, this method of dealing hair loss will never truly solve the problem.
3. Other Ancient Methods
There are many other strange methods to treat hair loss in the world. In the 1900’s, Americans used to vigorously brush their hair and put a lot of cologne to cure hair thinning. Some also applied spirit of camphor every night on their head. In Europe, some even applied animal feces on their head to cure hair loss.
It is clear that the treatment to hair loss has come a long way since these times. But not all of the old practices are useless. There a few of these old hair loss treatments that have paved the way to understanding the causes of hair loss and finding its cure. For example, Hippocrates discovered how eunuchs (castrated men) did not suffer from hair loss. He found that there is a connection between hair loss and a man’s reproduction organs but he did not have the means in those days to figure it out. But in our time, we do have the means to study this further. We know today that one of the causes of hair loss is the production of di-hydrotestosterone (DHT), which is a hormone produced by the testicles.
Because of modern science, we do not need to do what Hippocrates suggested in his time, which was the removal of testicles. In our time, we have many methods to decrease the production of the culprit hormone without resorting to extreme measures. Thank God for modern science!
