The Times view on ancient hair loss cures: Bald Truth – The Times

Those coming to terms with baldness can perhaps gain comfort from the fact that Hippocrates and Julius Caesar shared their predicament

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Since time immemorial, mankind has striven to answer certain questions. Do humans possess a soul? Where does it go when the body dies? And what can we do to stop going bald? The ancient Egyptians mixed a balm from the fats of lions, hippos, crocodiles, cats and serpents and spread the paste on balding heads. Plagued by his own hair loss, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, used pigeon droppings mixed with horseradish and opium to coax follicles back into action.

Now the painstaking translation of cuniform tablets from the library of Ashurbanipal, king of the Neo-Assyrians, reveals a modestly more palatable concoction involving anointment by mixtures of oils combined with shaving that boasts of full recovery. Little, alas, seems to have changed in the

Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-ancient-hair-loss-cures-bald-truth-nwwk277j7