|
Musings from Moyieboy ... |
|
If you are bald and don’t like it, have
I got a deal for you |
|
May 4, 2017 |
By Ken Carpenter
Man has been battling baldness since shortly
after he began to walk upright. I can only
imagine the stigma a bald pate would have
attached to one of the hairy Neanderthal boys.
They were probably considered very bad luck, for
until recent times a shiny dome has always had
negative connotations.
Heck, even the bible has references in it that
say The Big Guy will curse Israel’s enemies with
baldness, rating it right up there with sterile,
confused and feeble as an affliction.
It is no wonder developing a bald head is one of
mankind’s greatest personal fears.
There are literally hundreds of products
advertised on the Internet that promise a cure
for baldness. Every single one is promising an
outcome they can’t provide, for there is no cure
for a bald head, and there never has been.
Rogaine came out in the late 1980s and is still
on the market, but it is simply designed to
prevent hair loss, not sprout a crop of hair
where none exists. That does not stop men, and
women, from spending millions of dollars trying
to find something that will turn them into a
human Chia Pet.
The ancient Egyptians were, big surprise, one of
the first to devote considerable time and
trouble to eradicating baldness from their
imperial sight. They mixed up disgusting potions
consisting of rancid animal fat that must have
been designed to stink the scalp into producing
hair.
The stench method of curing baldness was popular
for centuries, and bald folks would coat their
pates with everything from urine to manure to
tar to lord knows what.
Hippocrates, the most famous doctor of all time,
preferred pigeon droppings to inspire the domes
of his patients to sprout. Aristotle, another
brilliant Greek of those times, had an affinity
for massaging goat urine into his scalp in an
attempt to fix his unsightly hairlessness.
It is a little known fact that Julius Caesar was
bald. His Egyptian buddy Cleopatra gave him
pastes of ground horse teeth and deer marrow,
but it was to no avail. He remained bald, and he
resorted to the always popular comb-over and a
laurel wreath to disguise the top of his head.
Apparently he was known as the king of the bad
comb-over, behind his back anyway.
The Renaissance period showed a few minor
improvements in approach if not effectiveness,
for cow saliva became a popular treatment for
those with a desire for more hair. It is at
least a little bit more civilized than cow
urine, you must admit.
In China they were fond of using ground animal
testicles in an attempt to fertilize their
pates. Alas, the hair may not have grown but
their heads were very popular at the zoo.
India was partial to headstands and meditation,
and there are still advocates of it today. The
problem is, many of the advocates are bald, so
it must not be working.
The newfangled technology of the late 1880s came
up with a dizzying array of gadgets to treat
baldness.
Electric shock, scalp vibrators, motorized
massagers and suction devices were widely used,
with no more luck than the pigeon droppings of
Hippocrates.
My Mom’s late husband, a prince of a fellow and
intelligent to boot, once crawled into bed
stinking like a tank factory. When the lights
came on, very soon after, it was discovered that
he had soaked his cranium in crude oil because a
friend told him it would make his hair come
back.
This did not endear him to my Mother, who
informed him that if he valued the few remaining
hairs on his head he would refrain from any
further sheet staining stunts.
Pharmaceutical companies are dumping millions of
dollars into research for a drug that will
inspire hair growth, and within 20 years or so
there may be one. It will be bigger than Viagra,
though I cringe to think of the side effects the
early drugs may cause. Hairy palms, anyone?
I am not exactly thrilled with the half acre
bald spot on my own noggin, but I am not overly
concerned with it either. It will not grow,
period, so why worry about it? I am not exactly
Tom Cruise after all, and bald must be in or
there wouldn’t be so many guys shaving their
heads.
Anyway, why do you think baseball caps were
invented? |
|
Questions or comments about this
article?
Click here to e-mail! |
|
|
|
|
