Trivia

The Barber Pole.

Do you guys recognise this??? The 3 or 2 colored candy looking pole that is now the symbol of barbers in western countries? Have you ever wondered where it came from?? Well, I have and did some research. And here is what I found

Back in time, many centuries ago, barbers used to do some surgeries. They were called barber-surgeons. So, they cut hair and slice people open as well. It was not until mid 18th century that barbers got separated from surgeons (the real ones) for good.

Barbers used to extract teeth, perform enemas (injecting liquid into the rectum to stimulate evacuation-3elaj lel emsaak ya3ny), bloodletting ( The removal of blood, usually from a vein, as a therapeutic measure), and wound surgery. It is from this process of bloodletting that the barber pole sign was created.

In the old days people believed that extra blood can causes disease (crazy isn't it). And they went to barber surgeons to cut open their arm through the veins and let the extra blood out. Crazy as it may seem people back then believed this would reduce the intensity of the illness they had caught. The patient would hold a rod so that his/her veins would pop-up and the barber would perform his part. Then after enough bleeding (until the patient faint) the barber would bandage the arm and that's it.

These bandages were washed, and hanged outside the shop on a POLE to dry. The bandages would twist around the pole due to the wind and give the spiral pattern that is now associated with The Barber Pole. Sometime the barber would hang a bloody bandage along side a clean one (which gave the red and white spiral color) as an advertisment for his services.

Later on, with medical advances, leeches were used to suck the blood instead of cutting (for less and more controlled bleeding). Leeches were kept in a container, which is now represented by the round ball on top of the pole. Soon after, these poles were replaced with painted poles (red and white strips) with a ball on top and placed permenantly outside as advertisment, and kept the bloody, more ghastly pole inside.

There are many speculations about how the color blue became associated with the pole. Some say that it stands for the color of veins (veins are coded blue in medicine, while arteries are red). Others say that Americans included the blue color in the pole to match the American flag; red, white, and blue.