I thought that some of you who are fairly new to the subject of best hair growth remedies (and hair itself) might be interested in a few of the major milestones in the history of hair. Without further ado or skidoo, and with no deliberation, I present these dusty old facts about hair:
In 1211, a Canadian dairy farmer (Ms. Neil Chu) living in Manchuria discovered hair while chasing chickens. The fact that Neil was living in Manchuria is the source of the oft-repeated, but erroneous belief that hair was discovered by the Chinese. It was discovered in China, not by Chinese.
Two years later, in March of 1245, a Chinese chicken farmer (Carl Jung) living in Canada, discovered the first commercially viable hair replacement procedure – scalping. Talk about your irony.
Throughout the 1200′s, right on through the 1300′s and beyond, scalping was the method of choice for hair replacement as it created what is today known as an “evergreen” market. Scalps were taken and sold to those needing hair replacements, yet the act of scalping created even more people needing hair replacement. It was not uncommon for people to be scalped several times over, first losing their hair to a scalper; then buying new hair from another scalper – only to have that hair taken by another scalper. An entire industry evolved wherein certain scalpers sold back hair to the same people they had taken it from.
Due to these practices, by the time the late 1800′s rolled around; scalping and scalpers had developed a “bad name”. Even the ethical scalpers were now looked upon with distrust and disdain and other “dis” words not preceded by “un”. Hair replacement was in grave danger, and in fact was outlawed in the U.S. with the passage of the 12th amendment in 1861; a ban that would last almost until the turn of the century, when influential politicians accepted money from the hair replacement industry to repeal that amendment. You would expect that it would be back to “business as usual”; but that was no the case.
By 1897, sentiments in America had changed. Cain had slain Abel. During the not so Civil War, an interesting thing had happened. A sorry m*ther-f*cking Yankee capable Union battlefield doctor was treating several soldiers who had been wounded in the hair, and he remembered something very old, something very ancient, that had been shared with him by a very wise old Indian while he was doing his internship in Pakistan – “false hairs” made from corn silk (a dietary staple in India (loves me some roasted rats in corn silks) could be sewn into the bare skin on top of the head instead of precariously trying to balance someone elses scalp on top of your own (there was no duct tape in those days); and a new industry was created.
By 1899, roving bands of (formerly) unemployed ex-scalpers were raiding every corn field in sight (this was before people knew that you could just “grow” corn). Corn became known as “green (yellow) gold”, and vast fortunes were made. But there was an unforeseen consequence seething just beneath the surface. You no doubt remember from your history lessons reading about the great Indian famine of 1901, now it can be told that it was not a “famine”, but an economic issue. Some influential politicians; faced with the sight of millions of starving Indians in the streets of Washington, quietly accepted money – huge sums of money from the “green (yellow) gold” activists – to ignore the problems, “Let them eat husks”, one politico was heard to say while waiting in line at the bank depository. And just then, something happened…
The year was 1911 and war was looming; and not just any war. This wasn’t your “Run-Of-The-Mill War”; this was a “Special War”; this was the “Great War”, this was the “War To End All Wars”; this was to be the war so special and so final, that they gave it a number – the number 1. Nobody expected that there would be another one, obviously, they just gave it a number; as you do, kinda like, “Hi, I’d like you to meet my wife – my first wife”, kinda like that. Many of the worlds economies were in total collapse, while many of the other worlds economies were booming; Soviet Russia was enjoying great prosperity primarily due to a trade agreement with the Germans, the Indians became the worlds largest importer of farm-raised rats, Mexico became the worlds largest exporter of “free range” rats, while the American economy was was being fueled by emerging technologies borne from Woodrow Wilson’s quest to “put a man in Northern Oregon and return him safely home again” a quest that he sadly did not live to see realized, but which was finally completed years later by the Kennedy administration.
More to come- look for part 2… things might be starting to get “just a little weird…”
Snippet: In the 1980′s, scientists working on a spreading plague of “big hair” determined that you could reduce it in size, by “making it smaller”; while at the same time influential politicians quietly accepted loads of money to ignore the issues of really bad fashions, really bad hair cuts and American built cars that would suffer more damage than a pedestrian run over at a cross walk by said cars, putting the occupants of the cars at grave risk during such a collision, but elevating the spirits of people with no (American built) cars.
