‘Like a face wanting a nose’: Baldness treatments in seventeenth-century England

In 1609, Thomas Dekker published The guls horne-booke, an account of gallant life replete with guidance for appropriate behaviour and dress. Intertwined with adulation for a full head of long hair, he describes baldness with satiric scorn:

‘Grasse is the haire of the earth, which so long as it is suffred to grow, it becomes the wearer, and carries a most pleasing colour, but when the Sunne-burnt clowne makes his mowes at it, and like a Barber) shaues it off to the stumps, then it withers and is good for nothing, but to be trust vp and thrown amongst Iades. How vgly is a bald pate? it lookes like a face wanting a nose: or like ground eaten bare with the arrowes of Archers.’ [1]

Figure 1: John Michael Wright, Thomas Hobbes, c.1669-1670.
National Portrait Gallery, London.  

Much of the discourse about baldness circulating in early modern England echoed Dekker’s tone of ridicule and derision.[2] In The Doting Old Dad, a ballad circulating in London in the 1680s about a 90 year old man pursuing a nineteen year-old woman, the young lady cites her disdain for her suitor’s ‘bald pate, and straggling hairs white and gray’ when declining his advances.[3] Considering this mocking tone, the dearth of seventeenth-century portraits of bald Englishmen is of little surprise. John Michael Wright’s Portrait of Thomas Hobbes [Fig.1] is a rare and intriguing exception, wherein the gentle light hitting Hobbes’ right temple works to highlight, rather than conceal, his balding pate.

But baldness is treated seriously, too. It is included in physicians’ medical treatises, with the same emphasis on theoretical understanding, cause, diagnosis and cure as more acute ailments such as consumption and smallpox. Pragmatic solutions are proposed, without satire or mockery, and often credited to respected ancient physicians such as Galen and Dioscorides, and esteemed sixteenth-century figures such as French physician Auger Ferrier and Italian anatomist Gabriele Falloppio (Fallopius). Texts propounding means for treating hair loss consistently differentiate between various maladies relating to lack of hair, including alopecia, ophiasis, defluvium, the falling or shedding of the hair and baldness.

It goes without saying that wigs were one convenient way to cover one’s baldness, however here I am going to focus on corrective measures - considering the ways in which men of seventeenth-century England were seeking to rectify their baldness, rather than simply hiding it. This interest in correction, rather than concealment, is consistent in the wide range of beauty recipes circulating at the time. Although the diatribes against beautification measures scorn artificial means such as face paint, a great proportion of beauty receipts focus on rectifying problems, rather than hiding them. Recipes for a red complexion, for example, not only suggest that readers cover their skin with a lead-based mixture, but also prescribe soothing waters to calm the skin, essentially seeking to treat the problem. The same can be said for baldness treatments, which seek to encourage hair growth, rather than hiding the bald head.  

The seventeenth-century English sources providing baldness treatments vary greatly, ranging from physicians’ manuals and compendia of ancient remedies to herbals, gentlewomen’s handbooks, and texts dedicated to beauty treatments. Baldness seems to conveniently straddle the domains of medicine and beauty. Medical treatises commonly cite it as a symptom of bodily ailments such as swollen veins, ulcers and smallpox, but the treatments they propose can also be found in empirical texts openly focused on appearances, such as Thomas Jeamson’s Artificial Embellishments, which offers instructions on ‘How to preserve beauty or procure it’.[4]

Certainly, should a man in seventeenth-century England be looking to remedy his baldness, topical treatments abound. Although there are a great many different recipes circulating, some ingredients appear consistently, either as simples propounded for their efficacy in treating baldness, or within more elaborate formulations. The vast majority of ingredients prescribed for baldness treatment are plant based, and plants consistently required by recipes include maidenhair (adiantum), marshmallow (alathaea officinalis), southernwood (artemisia abrotanum), myrtle (myrtus) and elm (ulmus). These are commonly incorporated with animal products such as bear or hedgehog grease, bee and fly ashes and mouse dung, and liquids including white wine, vinegar, olive oil and water, presumably to alter the consistency of the final product and enable easier application. Some topical treatments are found across numerous sources, with common methods instructing readers to pound peach kernels and boil them in vinegar, mix bee ashes with olive oil, or boil elm roots until a scum or froth is produced, which is then applied to the head.

There are also physical measures advertised for addressing baldness; namely rubbing the head red with coarse materials such as linen cloths or pumice. Several recipes with topical applications promise that rubbing the head before applying the mixture will increase its efficacy. Physicians’ manuals attribute some instances of balding to a dryness of the brain, or humours corroding hair roots, and thus friction is thought to help open the pores, bring nourishment to the head, and strengthen the skin.

Having worked with early modern beauty recipes for several years, when considering the recipes addressing baldness that were circulating in seventeenth-century England I was struck by their relative simplicity. Even those recipes that aren’t simples, combining several ingredients and requiring some labour, are notably undemanding. There are no complex distillations or time-consuming methods with long wait times, and, according to prices detailed in sources such as the London Pharmacopoeia and Harvey Gideon’s The Family Physician, the ingredients prescribed are consistently commonplace and affordable.[5] In beautification treatments - to remove freckles, for example - easy, straightforward and economical recipes are included, but there is a much greater range of ingredients and complexity of methods. I do wonder if the simplicity of baldness treatments may be attributed to the fact that engaging with complex, time-consuming recipes in an effort to improve one’s appearance, was less acceptable for men. We must also, however, entertain the idea that Englishmen’s wives were making these treatments, an idea supported by the inclusion of recipes more likely intended for men in texts specifically addressing a female readership.

Figure 2: Detail of 1661 advertisement for Katherine Alderson’s Barber Chirurgion shop in Sugarloaf Alley, London. Worcester College Library, University of Oxford.

There is little evidence of men employing these treatments but, considering the scorn generally directed at women for employing beautification measures, we can assume that the average early modern Englishman would hardly want to advertise any attempts to treat his baldness. To me, the consistent inclusion of recipes treating baldness in both medical and beauty recipe compendia is suggestive of demand. An advertisement from a barber-surgeon’s widow, Katherine Alderson, supports this hypothesis [Fig.2]. The pamphlet claims Alderson has an ‘approved good remedy for recovery of the hair of the head or beard.’ Even, she asserts, if a head ‘hath been quite bal’d for the space of twenty year,’ she can transform it into a ‘perfect head of hair or beard, within the space of two moneths.’ The efficacy of such a remedy is evidenced here by the several bald ‘worshipfull Gentlemen, and Ladies, and Maids’ she has cured. Though this endorsement must be understood in the context of Alderson’s promotion, the very fact that she dedicates such space of her advertisement to the treatment of baldness suggests there was demand for such a service. After all, no one wants to look like a face wanting a nose (Voldemort, anyone?).

[1] Thomas Dekker, The guls horne-booke (London: Printed by Nicholas Okes for R. S., 1609), 16-17.
[2] Anu Korhonen has identified the consistent portrayal of baldness as ‘a laughing matter’ in early modern England. See Anu Korhonen, ‘Strange Things Out of Hair: Baldness and Masculinity in Early Modern England,’ Sixteenth Century Journal XLI, no. 2 (2010): 371.
[3] Anonymous, The doting old dad, or, The unequal match betwixt a rich muckworm of fourscore and ten, and a young lass scarce nineteen (London: Printed for P. Brooksby, 1685).
[4] Thomas Jeamson, Artificiall Embellishments or, Arts Best Directions (Oxford: Printed by William Hall, 1665).
[5] Royal College of Physicians, Pharmacopœa Londinensis (London: Edward Griffen, 1618); Harvey Gideon, The Family Physician, and the house-apothecary (London: Printed for M.R., 1678).