An indeterminate amount of time ago I visited the strange and mystical land of the dermatologist. It was odd sitting in the sterile white room surrounded by advertisements for Botox and a giant tablet that displayed fun facts and health tips. If I've ever been in a capitalist dystopia, it was this room. Pop country streamed from a networked Sonos speaker in the corner. I turned it off repeatedly, but it somehow resumed probably every 10 minutes. I thought about how different this room, a testament to modern healthcare in which the same doctor performs cosmetic botox injections and skin cancer removal, must be from the campfires and caves at which medicine has been traditionally performed.
I read a book called Encounterism in which the author details several important moments of human connection, one of which is haircutting. In it I learned that in the recent past, surgeons were frequently barbers! This sort of makes sense, in some ways. Barbers are skilled with sharp tools, skin, and being in close proximity with patients. In fact, surgery was mostly avoided by Renaissance era physicians, as they focused on more "intellectual" pursuits perceived as higher class. How the tables have turned, imagine saying you are a surgeon and being written off as a manual laborer!
The pole seen outside of barber shops is actually a holdout from this era, as the red and blue striping are purported to represent the blood and bandages associated with bloodletting. In some particularly grim accounts, individuals would hold onto the pole as they were having painful surgery performed on them.
It's interesting how fast we have removed this connotation from the barber pole, and I gotta say, we should bring it back! What a unique concept to have a universal thing associated with a profession. Imagine if all grocery stores had a big basket on top of them. Transcending language, we could make all cities navigable to everyone! I guess you could make the argument that this is something that is already done just with big signs and photos of the products inside a store, but I disagree. There is something inherently fascinating about shapes and symbols, especially 3d ones attached to buildings. Novelty is the spice of life.
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