The barber's column The profession of barber is an ancient profession. The archaeological excavation has discovered razors that can be chronologically placed in the early Bronze Age (end of the 4th millennium BC), while the dating of remains of copper razors that have been found in Egypt reaches 3500 BC. The haircut refers to the Bible by Ezekiel, who writes: "And Sy, son of man, take a sharp knife, take a barber razor, and apply it on the head and the nape."
The profession of barber was inaugurated in Rome in 296 BC, and barbers soon gained popularity and prosperity. Their shops became the centers where news spread and daily gossip. All free Roman citizens were shaved, while slaves were obliged to keep their beards. In fact, from the Roman / Latin word "barba", which means beard, comes the word "barber".
Around 334 BC, Alexander the Great urged his soldiers to shave regularly so they would have an edge in body battles: being shaved, they could grab the enemies from their beards while they were protected.
The first barbers also served medical purposes. These were the places where surgeries were performed and dental services were provided. While the medical doctors devalued their surgeries, the barber-sons performed surgical procedures on injuries, underwent bleeding (usually with leeches) to prevent illness, used suction cups to drain blood, make enamels, and export tooths.
As the barbers dwelt not only in hairdressing and shaving, but also in surgery, they were called barber-surgeons. They created their first organization in France in 1094. In an attempt to separate academic surgeons from the surgeons, St. Kosmas College, founded in Paris around 1210, recognized the former as "long robe surgeons" and the latter as "surgeons with the short robe".
The French barbers and surgeons were organized as a guild in 1391, and the barber-surgeons were admitted as members of the University of Paris in 1505. Ambrosios Pare (1510-1590), father of modern surgery and great surgeon of the Renaissance, his career as a walker-barber-surgeon. Their brother was a barber-surgeon and his sister married a barber-surgeon.
In England, the barber-sons were enshrined as a guild by Edward IV in 1462 under the name "Company of the Barbers". The surgeons created their own guild, 30 years later, and the two companies were united by the law of Henry H in 1540 under the name "United Barber and Surgeon Society". In fact, however, it was forbidden for haircutters and hair shavers to practice surgery, except for teeth bleeding and extraction, and, accordingly, the surgeons were forbidden to take any kind of haircut or shave work. In France, a Louis XVI decree in 1743 banned barber surgery from barber surgery.
Two years later, in 1745, the King of Great Britain, George B, passed several bills that definitively separated the surgeons from the barber. The Surgeons have formed their own organization under the title "Lords, Governors and People of the Honorable Community of Surgeons of London". However, this club eventually dissolved in 1800, during the reign of George III, and was replaced by the Royal College of Surgeons.
The origin of the barber pole seems to be related to the bleeding service. The original barber's pillar has a bronze basin at its top, depicting the pot in which they were putting the leeches and draining the blood. The post itself represented the stick held by the patient during surgery. The white and red stripes symbolized the bandages used in the process - white for pure bandages and red for the blood-stained. The bandages were hung to dry after washing, then shattered and drained together, forming the familiar helical pattern one encounters in the pillars outside modern barbers. The bloody bandages were gradually identified as the barber-surgeon's emblem. Later, this emblem was replaced by a wooden red-white stripe column - these colors are considered the true colors of the barber's emblem. Red, white and blue are widely used in America, thanks mainly to the fact that the national flag has the same colors.
Another theory about the colors of the barber's poles interprets red as representative of arterial blood, blood of veins blood and white as a symbol of bandages. Following the creation of the "United Barber and Surgeon Society" in London, a law required berserkers to use a blue-white pole and the surgeons a red. In France, the long-haired surgeons placed a red pillar with a bowl as distinctive outside their offices.
