BAR'BER (ME. harbour. OF. barbeor, from Lat. barba, heard). One who shaves the beard, and ordinarily includes hair-cutting in his pro fession. The office is of great antiquity, and is referred to by the Prophet Ezekiel: "And thou, son of man, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard." From ancient monuments and papyri we know that the Egyptians shaved both the and the head. In all Eastern countries, including China, the shaving of the whole or part of the head continues to be performed by barbers. The barber-shops of Athens and Rome were great meeting-places for idlers and gossips.
The most important and dignified portion of the history of barbers relates to the period when in all European countries they had the right to practice elementary medicine and surgery, and were known as barber-surgeons. Relics of this combination of functions are the brass basin still hung out as a sign at the door of European barber-shops, and the red band about the pole, which represents the bandage with which they stopped the bleeding incident to their operations. The existence of barbers as professors of the healing art can be traced in England as far back as 1461, when they were first incorporated. In 1546 they were united with the surgeons. The connection was dissolved by an act of 1745, whose preamble asserts that the business or trade of a barber is "foreign to, and independent of, the practice of surgery"; at the same time the privi leges of the barbers as a company or corporation were expressly preserved to them. The statutes
of Heriot's Hospital, compiled in 1627, include among the officers "one chirurgeon barber, who shall cut and pole the hair of all the scholars of the hospital, and also look to the cure of all those within the hospital who shall anyway stand in need of his art." In Markwell Street, Cripplegate, London, the ancient hall formerly used by the barber-surgeons is still standing.
In France, barber-surgeons were organized in 1371 into a corporation which was under the jurisdiction of the King's barber, and existed until the Revolution. 1.n the Seventeenth Cen tury wigs (q.v.) became so elaborate that a dis tinct corporation was formed of barbic=rs per ruquiers, who also shared and cut the hair. In Germany, though the trade of the barbers was long connected with the art of surgery, they were not formed into a corporation until 1773 (in Prussia, 1779). This was dissolved in 1809, and new unions formed in the middle of the cen tury with strict regulations. Consult: Annals of the Barber-Surgeons of London (London, 1890) ; L'Espinasse, Les metiers at corporations de to rifle do Paris (Paris, 1336-97). See also BEARD: