Remember the good old days? When the cure for everything was being given copious amounts of cocaine and being covered in leeches. Ahhh, I can just picture it now. Not a phone in sight, just people living in the moment, straight vibing and bloodletting.
Alas, we humans are industrious creatures, and we’ve unfortunately found ways to replace getting coked up on leeches with boring shit like antibiotics and a balanced diet. It’s a real shame. And yet, for all our medical prowess, some men are still victims to the whims of the genetic hair lottery.
Hair’s not the be-all and end-all, sure, but I don’t think there’s a bloke on earth who has noticed his hair thinning and thought to himself, good, I love this. Going bald isn’t a death sentence for your love life though — bald dudes get laid all the time. Hell, there are probably thousands of bald dudes having sex right now. Having a limp dick, on the other hand, now that’s a different kettle of hair tonic.
Thankfully, science has found a way to wake your member from its deep embarrassing slumber, in the form of a magic pill invented in the ’90s. And it seems our mate science is well on its way to permanently curing balding soon, too.
Up until recently, seeking out these treatments was a real hassle. But not anymore. See, we live in a golden age of discreet delivery services like Stagger, who deliver things like viagra and hair growth pills straight to your door — no embarrassing in-person doctor visit necessary.
But how did blokes deal with these problems in the days before Will Smith and network television? Well, friend, you’ve come to the right place.
Limp dicks
Our story begins in Egypt, 1,600 years before Jesus came down and apparently chose to ‘die for our sins’ instead of curing limp dicks and balding. The ancient Egyptians believed that a lack of, ahem, vigour, was due to a man falling victim to an evil spell. The solution? Simple — just rub some crushed up baby crocodile hearts on your dick, ancient bro, and you’ll be good to go.
The Egyptians had a host of other ‘cures’ too, most of which had a crocodile’s chance in Antarctica of getting you hard. All except one — the white and blue lotus flower, which seemed to actually have some merit. The active ingredient in the flower, apomorphine, has recently been proven to be effective in the treatment of erectile dysfunction.
Fast forward to Ancient Greece, 300 BC, and you’ll be likely to find our man Aristotle combing the corpses of Spanish flies. The great philosopher was known to extract an aphrodisiac out of the dried dead beetles (the Spanish fly is actually a beetle, wild!). This method of treating limp dicks was used for centuries, though we know today that it does jack shit, besides being slightly toxic for human consumption. Stick to moving the world with a single lever, Aristotle. Or was that Archimedes? Whatever, both were smart, neither could cure limp dicks.
Our journey of soft dicks and sad men takes us next to the year 1487, when the Malleus Maleficarum — a medieval textbook for witch hunters — was released. Translated from Latin as the Hammer of Witches, the book advises men suffering from impotence to track down the evil woman who they suspect had cast a spell on his dong, and convince her to undo the spell. The book recommends using violence when words won’t suffice. Lovely.
In 1873, Italian doctor Francesco Parona gave the world its first surgical treatment for soft dick by blocking the veins that drained the blood away from an erection. Then, in the 1920s an enterprising chap by the name of Dr Serge Voronoff believed he had not only found the cure for limp dicks, but the fountain of youth too. So what was his magical cure? Well, you’re gonna wanna grab a few centimetres of monkey testicles. Right, now have those monkey testes sewn into your scrotum, and voila! Hard dicks and eternal youth baby.
Things started to unravel for the good doctor Voronoff when patients who had undergone his procedure began to show signs of aging, and the whole thing was largely discredited as pseudoscience. But not before around 2,000 men had undergone the monkey balls procedure. This was only a century ago! the roaring ’20s man, what a time to be alive. Anyway, let’s move on, shall we?
Chrome domes
Our story once again begins in ancient Egypt, 4,000 BC, when the cure for the common bald was to rub a ground-up mixture of dates, donkey hooves, and dog paws (cooked in oil, of course) all over baldie’s head.
Eventually, the Egyptians modified this recipe. The medical text, Ebers papyrus, which dates roughly to 1550 BC, recommends a remedy consisting of iron oxide, red lead, onions, alabaster, honey, and fat from a crocodile, hippo, snake, ibex, and a male cat, all mixed together and swallowed. If that fails to work, then simply boil porcupine hair, and apply to the scalp for four days. That should do the trick.
Fast forward to 460 BC, where the great Greek god of medicine Hippocrates was known to rub a potion consisting of opium, pigeon shit, horseradish, cumin, beetroot, and other spices on his shiny dome.
Discontent with this solution, Hippocrates cast his eyes on the eunuchs of Persia, noticing that they never experienced any hair loss, which led him to conclude that the cure for hair loss was castration. Turns out dude was on the money — in March 1995, researchers at Duke University found that castration was indeed a cure for baldness, albeit not a “commercially acceptable” one.
Moving on to ancient Rome, 50 BC. Did you know Julius Caesar invented the comb-over? Yep, as his grand empire was expanding, his poor hairline was receding. The great emperor was v self-conscious about his thinning hair, so he’d grow the back long and comb it over the top. That’s not all, in a last-ditch attempt to hide his hairline from the masses, he started wearing a laurel wreath around his head — you know the one. It would later be worn by Roman emperors following J.C as a symbol of power and virility. Lol.
Our journey through the chrome domes of history takes us now to Ireland, 1000 AD, where they had a cure so potent, you had to wear gloves when handling it, lest you wanted thick hair sprouting from your palms. The cure in question? Stuff a bunch of mice into a clay jar, seal it, bury it beside a fire, and come back a year later. Rub that disgusting goop on your head and you’ll have flowing locks in no time, friend.
By the time the 1500s rolled around, much of Europe was plagued by Syphilis, which caused, among other things, hair loss. So, wigs came into fashion. The more important you were, and the wealthier you were, the bigger wig you could afford. Thus the term ‘big wig’ was born. One of the biggest wigs in history was King Louis XIV of France, who started wearing massive wigs after losing his hair to syphilis. And by big, I mean ‘yuge — some of his wigs weighed up to 9kg. Big flex.
By the time 1889 rolled around, doctors in the British Medical Journal concluded that badness could be prevented by a healthy diet and exercise, and had absolutely nothing to do with genetics. While in 1896, Scientific American claimed listening to brass instruments was to blame, I shit you not.
Over the last century, humans have tried a bunch of other odd cures to try and stimulate hair growth, from weird scalp suction machines to early hair transplants that turned out really bad. In 1989, the British Medical Journal told its readers that “encouraging [men] to come to terms with baldness is still the best response.”
These days, going bald and having a dick that’s less than fighting fit is annoying, but it’s not the end of the world. The good news is if you’re experiencing those problems, it’s never been a better time to be alive. So stress less amigo, and thank Christ almighty you weren’t born in ancient Egypt. Unless of course, you’re into rubbing crushed up croc hearts on your balls.
Hey, no judge, you do you bro.
