Eli5. How did a red white and blue spiral pole become synonymous for barber shops?

Question

Eli5. How did a red white and blue spiral pole become synonymous for barber shops?

In: 403

Answer 1

Barbers used to also be basic surgeons and dentists.

The pole itself represented the staff/shaft that patients squeezed to encourage floodflow, and the red and blue spirals were representation of the caduceus, a symbol associated with medicine.

Additionally the pole also was meant to have two basins, atop and at the bottom. The top one would represent the therapeutic leeches awaiting use, and the bottom one was the blood collection basin.

The colors themselves were about medical attention (red), bone correction (white), and general barber services if no other emergency was afoot (blue).

Then it simply became so associated with barbers that when surgeon doctors became their own thing, they just… Kept the pole itself, while the doctors just took the actual caduceus symbol.