![]() ![]() ![]() The white band, which encompasses the staff, was meant to represent the fillet thus elegantly twined about it." We reproduce a page from "Comenii Orbis Pictus," perhaps better known under its English title of the "Visible World." It is said to have been the first illustrated school-book printed, and was published in 1658. The Barber's Shop, from "Orbis Pictus." A more satisfactory explanation is given in the "Antiquarian Repertory." "The barber's pole," it is there stated, "has been the subject of many conjectures, some conceiving it to have originated from the word poll or head, with several other conceits far-fetched and as unmeaning but the true intention of the party coloured staff was to show that the master of the shop practised surgery and could breathe a vein as well as mow a beard: such a staff being to this day by every village practitioner put in the hand of the patient undergoing the operation of phlebotomy. This is the old word for doctors or surgeons. They used poles, as some inns still gibbet their signs, across a town." It is a doubtful solution of the origin of the barber's sign. They therefore used to hang their basons out upon poles to make known at a distance to the weary and wounded traveller where all might have recourse. In cities and corporate towns they still retain their name Barber-Chirurgions. In England they were in some sort the surgeons of old times, into whose art those beautiful leeches, our fair virgins, were also accustomed to be initiated. "The barber's art," says the book, "was so beneficial to the publick, that he who first brought it up in Rome had, as authors relate, a statue erected to his memory. 334), to trace the remote origin of the pole. An attempt is made in "The Athenian Oracle" (i. One circumstance is clear: its origin goes back to far distant times. ![]() So many suggestions have been put forth as to its origin and meaning that the student of history is puzzled to give a correct solution. Round the barber's pole gather much curious fact and fiction. Indeed, the three brass balls of the pawn-broker and the pole of the barber are all that are left of signs of the olden time. THE BARBER'S POLE n most instances the old signs which indicated the callings of shopkeepers have been swept away. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |