Cure For Baldness……. Ahem!

Trichologist Dr Shahid Shamsher tells us about some exotic cures for baldness prescribed over centuries.

Various cures for baldness have been proposed right from time immemorial. Every few years someone claims to have found some fancy or rare cure for baldness, a claim that sadly falls away with time……, until the next claimant comes along. Let’s examine some of these cures-

The oldest claim can be attributed to Hippocrates, the Father of medicine (and the author of the Hippocratic Oath). Hippocrates would recommend the use of Pigeon droppings to be massaged on the head once a week as a cure for baldness. We are not sure how well it works, but clearly the great doctor did not try it out on himself as it is believed that he was himself completely bald.

Another of his Greek contemporary, Aristotle used to prescribe Goat’s urine as a cure for baldness. In Aristotle’s case, it is believed he did use it himself, sadly however he too went the Hippocrates way.

The famous queen Cleopatra, herself had very good hair, but wanted to cure Julius Caesar’s baldness. Her prescription – a mixture of burnt mice, horse teeth, bear grease and deer marrow. Clearly the ancient folks had high tolerance levels.

Coming to more recent times, the 20^th century particular has been rife with new cures coming out every year. Sample some of them-

• One doctor in Japan recommended using a special shampoo to wash hair whilst listening to the music of Mozart
• A very popular native cure is allowing your bald head to be licked by a cow. It does not however clarify on how to get the cow to co-operate in this venture.
• And perhaps the best cure of all – A doctor from England recommends drinking lots of alcohol for curing baldness. Not sure if drinking alcohol will stop the hair loss, or that you are just too drunk to care.

So next time someone claims to have found a cure baldness, a cure which has evaded the best and brightest in human history, well…… ahem!