What Insect Is Used to Cure Baldness?

Television commercials might lead you to believe otherwise, but mankind has been searching for a baldness cure for thousands of years. Today, there are many treatments for baldness, including transplants, topical medications and implants, but no verifiable cure. But at least we seem to have passed the time when an insect was considered a possible remedy.

Significance

• Using insects as a cure for what ails us has been attempted throughout history. Leeches to draw blood and maggots that eat dead tissue and clean wounds are still in use.

  Testing on rats in China showed that an ant, Polyrhachis Vicina, increases longevity--at least in rats. This same ant is used in Tibet to ease arthritis pain and improve the immune system.

Early Trials

• About 2,500 years ago in Ancient Greece, the physician Hippocrates was desperate for a cure for baldness--including his own. He at first tried pigeon droppings, rubbing them on a bald head and hoping they would act as a sort of manure for hair growth. When this failed, he turned to the Spanish fly.

  Because the Spanish fly, or blister beetle, secretes cantharadin, an irritant, Hippocrates reasoned that it might help promote hair growth. He had already used it to treat both dropsy (now known as edema) and amenorrhea, a condition in which a woman does not have a menstrual cycle. As with those earlier problems, Hippocrates figured that the caustic aspect of cantharadin would stimulate the skin and cause bleeding--in this case, on the head.

Later Use

• Although Hippocrates' attempts failed, that didn't stop Alexander Barry, a New York wig-maker, from trying it again. In the 1840s, Barry marketed the infamous "Barry's Tricopherous" as a cure for baldness. It contained only 1 percent Spanish fly. It also had about 1.5 percent castor oil and about 97 percent alcohol. It also didn't work.

  The idea behind this product and others like it was that by applying it to the scalp, the skin would become irritated, blister and bleed, but in the process would increase blood flow to dead or dormant hair follicles, giving them the nourishment they needed to become reactivated.

Misconceptions

• After clinical trials, it was learned that far from being beneficial, cantharidin is actually poisonous to people and animals. Today it is almost never used, except sometimes by veterinarians as a counterirritant.

Expert Insight

• There are only three products that have earned approval from the Federal Drug Administration as products that promote hair growth in some people (note the lack of the word "cure"): 2 percent and 5 percent minoxidil (Rogaine s one of the brand names for this product) and Propecia.

  About 250,000 other claims have been tested and rejected.