I was doing some looking around the other day looking for the relationship between the spread of cane sugar as part of the diet of Western cultures and the expansion of the practice of Dentistry when I came across this previously unknown (by me) piece of info:
The origin of the red and white barber pole is associated with the service of bloodletting and was historically a representation of bloody bandages wrapped around a pole. During medieval times, barbers performed surgery on customers, as well as tooth extractions. The original pole had a brass basin at the top (representing the vessel in which leeches were kept) and bottom (representing the basin that received the blood). The pole itself represents the staff that the patient gripped during the procedure to encourage blood flow.
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