The Good Ole Days When Barbers were also Surgeons :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

The Good Ole Days When Barbers were also Surgeons The word barber is derived from the Latin word barba, meaning beard.2 As a profession, barbering was introduced in Rome in 296 B.C. The barbers of the early days were also surgeons and dentists, and in both Egypt and Greece, barbers attained prosperity and respect. Statesmen, poets, and philosophers who came to have their hair cut or their beards trimmed frequented the shops. They also came to discuss the news of the day because the barbershops of the ancient world were the headquarters of social, political, and sporting news. Barbers also performed other services, having been enlisted in later years to assist the clergy in their medicinal practice of blood letting. At the Council of Tours in 1163, the clergy were forbidden to draw blood or to act as physicians or surgeons. Barbers then took up these duties, partly because they were the natural successors of the clergy, but also because physicians of that time disdained surgery. The origin of the barber's pole appears to be associated with this service of bloodletting. The original pole has at its top a brass basin that represents both the vessel in which leeches were kept and the basin that received the blood. The pole itself represents the staff that the patient held onto during the operation. The red and white stripes symbolize the bandages used during the procedure: red for the bandages stained with blood during the operation and white for the clean bandages. After washing, the bandages were hung out to dry on the pole, blowing and twisting together to form the spiral pattern seen on the modern day barber pole. The bloodstained bandages became recognized as the emblem of the barber-surgeon profession. Later, the emblem was replaced by a wooden pole of white and red stripes. These colors are recognized as the true colors of the barber emblem. Red, white, and blue typically are displayed in America, partly due to the fact that the national flag has these colors. Another interpretation of these barber pole colors is that the red represents arterial blood, the blue is symbolic of venous blood, and the white depicts the bandage. After the formation of the United Barber Surgeons Company in England, a statute required barbers to use a blue and white pole and surgeons to use a red pole. The connection between barbery and surgery continued for more than six centuries, and the barber profession reached its pinnacle during this time.