The Orgins Of The Bloody Barber Pole

Tonight you step back into the time machine, and find yourself, in the 1700's. The haze of black smoke parts, and you open your eyes. Everything looks weird, you feel intense pain, a warm, sticky substance leaks from you abdomen. You dont remember what happened, but there is blood everywhere. A nice young maiden sees you, and calls for help. Several gentlemen put you in the back of their wagon, and rush to get you to help. You see blackness, and when you come to...you see a wooden barber pole.You wonder why you are at the Barber shop, you need medical care! You protest, and the men tell you, you are in the right place. What you dont realize is the barber, not only shaves you, and gives you a haircut. He also performs surgery, does amputations, pulls teeth, and performs a procedure called blood letting.When the men help get you on the table, you look across the room.The barber, is busy doing a blood letting procedure, on a older man, who is suffering from an unknown illness. He stops, when he sees your need, for medical attention immediately. The barber who already smells like whiskey, pulls out a silver flask. He takes a big sip, offers you one, and then spills some of the whiskey over your injury. It burns, the pain is so intense you feel like you are in a nightmare, and you beg someone to wake you. The barber uses his teeth to cut the thread, and begins to sew you back together. You feel each poke, and the thread being pulled through your skin. You try to scream, but you have no voice, you are to weak. When you are done, he leaves you on the table, and walks back over to finish the blood letting procedure. You watch as the doctor instructs the man to grasp, and squeeze a red wooden pole, wrapped with white gauze.The doctor uses a sharpened wooden lancet to "breathe the vein". The squeezing of the pole, helps the blood flow.The pole sits in a white basin, filled with leaches. The doctor uses this procedure to restore the sick body's internal equilibrium. The leaches are used to suck the blood, from the body, after the blood stops flowing easily. Unfortunately, the procedure doesn't go well, like most blood lettings, dont. The old man dies, but he dies in the right place. The barber prepares the mans body for a haircut,and a shave for his funeral. Next time you see a Barber pole spinning, you will know the meaning, and you will be glad you are born in a luckier time. The red stripe represents the blood, and the white that spins represents the bloody bandages drying in the wind. The blue is said to have been added later, to include Americana. Yet some claim the blue represents the blood still in the vein. Anyone need a haircut?