Do you know where the word Barber comes from? It is from the Latin word BARBA, meaning beard. Interestingly, free men of Rome were clean-shaven and slaves were forced to wear beards. Alexander The Great made his soldiers shave so that the enemy could not grab them by their beard. Barbering was originally introduced in Rome in 296 BC. Barbers were originally surgeons and dentists. They were one of the three catergories of the medical profession; others being physician and pharmaceutical, such as a herbalist. They extracted teeth, did blood letting, leeching, haircutting, and shaving, therefore becoming known as barber surgeons.
The orgin of the barbers pole is closely related to all of this. The patients used to hold onto a wooden pole during the procedurea. The original pole had a brass basin at the top representing the container, or vessel, in which the leeches were kept, and the bottom bowl represented the bowl used to recieve the blood. The red is for the bandages that got stained with blood during the procedures and the white stood for the clean bandages. Most interesting is that the bandages would be hung out to dry and they would often twist together in the wind, forming the spiral pattern that we associate barber poles with today.
