Discover a fascinating medieval solution to a problem that still plagues many today: hair loss. Explore how the 12th-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen’s unique remedy could hold the key to unlocking a natural cure for baldness.
Among her many roles, the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen was a scholar, mystic, composer, and medical expert. In the 1150s, she wrote The Book of the Intricacies of the Diverse Natures of Creatures, which focused on science and medicine, covering topics from the creation of the world to maintaining good health.
Hildegard’s work includes a couple of references to baldness. In one section, she explains why men lose hair on their heads, connecting it to medieval ideas about the body’s balance between hot, cold, wet, and dry states:
A person with a big, wide bald spot has strong warmth inside himself. This warmth and the sweat from his head push out the hair. The moisture of his breath is fertile and moistens the flesh where the beard grows so that much hair can grow there. But a person who does not have much hair in his beard, though hair in abundance on his head, is cold and quite infertile. When his breath touches the flesh around his mouth this flesh becomes infertile.
For Hildegard, baldness was not so much a problem on the head, but not having a beard indicated potential infertility. In short, she writes, “people who have a big, wide bald spot, also have a big and wide beard, and that those who have a thin and sparse beard have much more hair on the tops of their heads.”
Later in her book, Hildegard offers a treatment to prevent baldness using wheat and bear fat:
When a young person begins to lose his hair, take bear fat, a small quantity of ashes from wheat straw or from winter wheat straw, mix this together and anoint the entire head with it, especially those areas on the head where the hair is beginning to fall out. Afterwards, he should not wash this ointment off for a long while.
The hair that has not yet fallen out will be moistened and strengthened by this ointment so that it will not fall out for a long time. Let him repeat this often and not wash his head. For the warmth of bear fat has the property of causing much hair to grow. And the ashes from wheat straw or winter wheat straw strengthen the hair so that it will not readily fall out. When these ingredients are mixed as described, they will hold a person’s hair for a long time so that it does not fall out.
You can read more of Hildegard’s medical knowledge in On Natural Philosophy and Medicine, translated by Margaret Berger (DS Brewer, 1999).
Discover a fascinating medieval solution to a problem that still plagues many today: hair loss. Explore how the 12th-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen’s unique remedy could hold the key to unlocking a natural cure for baldness.
Among her many roles, the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen was a scholar, mystic, composer, and medical expert. In the 1150s, she wrote The Book of the Intricacies of the Diverse Natures of Creatures, which focused on science and medicine, covering topics from the creation of the world to maintaining good health.
Hildegard’s work includes a couple of references to baldness. In one section, she explains why men lose hair on their heads, connecting it to medieval ideas about the body’s balance between hot, cold, wet, and dry states:
A person with a big, wide bald spot has strong warmth inside himself. This warmth and the sweat from his head push out the hair. The moisture of his breath is fertile and moistens the flesh where the beard grows so that much hair can grow there. But a person who does not have much hair in his beard, though hair in abundance on his head, is cold and quite infertile. When his breath touches the flesh around his mouth this flesh becomes infertile.
For Hildegard, baldness was not so much a problem on the head, but not having a beard indicated potential infertility. In short, she writes, “people who have a big, wide bald spot, also have a big and wide beard, and that those who have a thin and sparse beard have much more hair on the tops of their heads.”
Later in her book, Hildegard offers a treatment to prevent baldness using wheat and bear fat:
When a young person begins to lose his hair, take bear fat, a small quantity of ashes from wheat straw or from winter wheat straw, mix this together and anoint the entire head with it, especially those areas on the head where the hair is beginning to fall out. Afterwards, he should not wash this ointment off for a long while.
The hair that has not yet fallen out will be moistened and strengthened by this ointment so that it will not fall out for a long time. Let him repeat this often and not wash his head. For the warmth of bear fat has the property of causing much hair to grow. And the ashes from wheat straw or winter wheat straw strengthen the hair so that it will not readily fall out. When these ingredients are mixed as described, they will hold a person’s hair for a long time so that it does not fall out.
You can read more of Hildegard’s medical knowledge in On Natural Philosophy and Medicine, translated by Margaret Berger (DS Brewer, 1999).
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