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

The trade good Ole Days When Barbers were also SurgeonsThe word barber is derived from the Latin word barba, content beard.2 As a profession, barbering was introduced in Rome in 296 B.C. The barbers of the early age 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 vibrissa cut or their beards trimmed frequented the shops. They also came to discuss the news of the solar 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 pr cloakice of linage 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, barely also because physicians of that time disdained mathematical operation. The origin of the barbers terminal appears to be associated with this service of bloodletting. The headmaster 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 mental faculty that the patient held onto during the operation. The red and exsanguinous stripes symbolize the bandages used during the surgical operation red for the bandages stained with blood during the operation and white for the clean bandages. afterward washing, the bandages were hung out to dry on the pole, blowing and twisting together to form the ringlet pattern seen on the modern day barber pole. The bloodstained bandages became accepted 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 avowedly colors of the barber emblem. Red, white, and blue typical ly 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.