Syphilis was the legislator of this medieval fashion.
In the Middle Ages, the city was mowed down not only by plague, cholera and ergotism, but also by syphilis, a favorite disease of the Catholic Church, right now sometimes called the "plague of the Middle Ages." Smallpox, scurvy, and leprosy did relatively little harm. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church declared all sexual relations not aimed at having children as a sin. However, this did not help the top of the church confession - three popes suffered from syphilis:
- Alexander VI (1431 - 1503),
- Julius II (1443 - 1513),
- Leo X (1475 - 1521).
In 1530 the Italian physician D. Frakastoro delighted lovers of fine literature with the poem "Syphilis, or the French disease." It was believed that the disease spread thanks to the frivolous French. At that time, almost the entire population of southern Europe, from the holy fathers to the street beggars, fell ill with syphilis. The successful use of mercury drugs for the treatment of syphilis, which was so widespread at that time, brought special glory to Paracelsus.
The German historian-epidemiologist Professor G. Geser, whose two-volume work "The History of Common Diseases" was translated into Russian and published in St. Petersburg in 1868, first drew attention to syphilis and other diseases as the basis for a fundamental change in human behavior - for example, that syphilis of the XVII -XVIII centuries became a trendsetter. Gezer wrote that due to syphilis, all kinds of vegetation on the head and face disappeared. And so the gentlemen, in order to show the ladies that they are completely safe and do not suffer from anything like that, began to grow long hair and mustaches. Well, those who, for whatever reason, did not succeed, came up with wigs, which, with a sufficiently large number of syphilitics in the upper strata of society, quickly became fashionable in Europe and North America. The Socratic bald patches of the sages have ceased to be held in high esteem to this day.
Not only gentlemen were affected by this problem, bald spots appeared then not only for them, but also for women. And by no means because of the wisdom of the latter. But even these bald spots were skillfully covered with wigs. From the word wig, which sounded similarly in all European languages (perruque - French, parrucca - Italian, perücke - German, etc.), the name of those who made these wigs - hairdressers - was born. The barbers were appreciated, and not only the Sevillian ones. This profession has become one of the highest paid in the world. Therefore, the rich barbers, along with the wine merchants, become owners of profitable real estate:
"Until the 18th century, furnished rooms in Paris (they were kept by wine merchants or barbers) - dirty, full of lice and bedbugs - served as a refuge for public women, criminals, foreigners, young people with no means who had just arrived from their province …"
(F. Braudel. The structures of everyday life. Possible and impossible. Vol.1. - M., 1986. - S. 298.)
Those who were not sick began to grow and show their hair - in the late Middle Ages, even married women began to open their hair, styling it in accordance with the fashion of that time.
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The point is probably also not only in the relationship between gentlemen and ladies, but also in the fact that in the Middle Ages the "unclean" were referred to as suffering not only from leprosy, but also from many other diseases, the same syphilis, for example. And the "unclean" one could have been expelled from the city in general, even having made the diagnosis by mistake - such a widespread syphilis for medieval doctors played the same role as acute respiratory infections for Soviet doctors. In case of any doubts, a diagnosis of syphilis was made, following the rule "In dubio suspice luem"
("In doubtful cases, look for syphilis"). How is it without a wig?
What do they do in a hairdresser? ", Any child will answer:" They cut their hair! ", Being surprised at the ignorance of adults. But then, when syphilis, along with the accompanying baldness, spread in England, the semantics of the name was quite understandable: after all, it was not "haircutter" - "hair cutter" - they called the barber, but "hairdresser" - "hair dresser". This is how the very wigs appeared in England that judges and lords are proud of to this day, as a glorious and ancient Tradition.
