The word “alopecia” is the medical term referring to hair loss. It is of Greek origin and the literal translation means “fox”. Hair grows on almost every part of the body except the lips, palms of the hands and soles of the feet. Alopecia can be treated by plastic surgery.
Stages of history
Stone Age: A comb made of boxwood has been discovered in a tomb of that time. The comb is 10,000 years old. There have also been many discoveries from this period of heads adorned with bones and feathers.
Egypt: Statues, tombs and cave paintings dating back 5,000 years show the importance given to hair at that time.
Roman times: The Romans fought against hair loss from the beginning of the millennium. Caesar wore a laurel wreath to hide his alopecia. It was he who introduced the practice of cutting the enemy’s hair as a sign of submission. Prostitutes in Roman times were authorized, punished and forced to dye their hair blond or wear a blond wig.
Age of darkness: It was a time when hair loss was considered important. Queen Clotilde of Gaul (554 A.D.) allowed her grandchildren to be killed in the back before she would allow their hair to be cut.
Renaissance: During this era, women covered their hair or used a net or cloth to gather long hair at the nape of the neck. This was known as a balzo. One of the fashions of the time, popularized by Queen Elizabeth I was to wear wigs. In Shakespeare’s tragedies, hair loss was a reflection of insecurity.
17th and 18th centuries: King Louis XIII of France covered his bald head with a large wig. As his subjects joined the fashion, his wig became more and more extravagant and exaggerated. The first women’s salon, or barber shop, appeared in 1635 in France. This was 1,300 years after the first men’s hairdressing salon appeared.
Colonization of America: In 1655, the president of Harvard stated in his inaugural address that long hair was forbidden and that it would not be “lawful for anyone to wear long hair, locks or topknots” or to powder their hair or use ringlets or streaks.
Beginning of the 20th century: During this period it became popular for women to wear their hair short. More than 2,000 women cut their hair every day above the shoulders, always leaving the nape of the neck covered to wear a “mane”. It was also at this time, when the University of Arkansas announced that the results of some experiments had shown that longer hair was a sign of female intelligence.
End of the 20th century: In 1989, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed 300,000 products intended to grow, restore or save hair, which could be found on the market without a prescription. These products were either ineffective or unsafe. There are only two FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of alopecia: minoxidil (topical), approved in 1988, and finasteride (oral), approved in 1998.