New Hope
BEIJING, Jan. 24 - His pate
gleaming like a freshly
peeled potato, the man
waited expectantly in the
whitewashed room, the
buoyant confidence of a
lottery ticket buyer
lighting his eyes.
Dr. Zhao Zhangguang dipped a
small brush into a plastic
bottle filled with an
apricot-colored liquid and
began daubing the hairless
dome in a sort of invisible
pointillism. On the bottle
containing the liquid, a
gold label read: "101 Hair
Regeneration Liniment."
The substance is among an
array of elixirs, syrups and
potions produced by doctors
here in a crusade to retard
or even reverse baldness.
Most prominent in the
crusade is Dr. Zhao, who has
produced a substance that is
championed by some Beijing
city officials and that is
inspiring hope among those
sporting nature's tonsure.
Former Barefoot Doctor
"I used to be a barefoot
doctor," Dr. Zhao, 45 years
old, said, his own shaggy
thatch evidence that he does
not need a dose of his own
medicine. "I am from the
mountains in Zhejiang. In
the mountains, we pay a lot
of attention to plants and
herbs."
"Basically, I was trained in
herbal medicine, treating
skin disease. What got me
started in treating hair
loss was the case of a
schoolteacher who came to me
one day in 1973. She was
bald. Even though she wore a
wig, everyone still called
her bald. After a while, she
stopped teaching because the
people made fun of her.
Whenever she went to her
mother's house, she had to take an alternative route rather than the main road to avoid being seen and ridiculed."
"Well, this was how I
started to think about this
problem. I decided to have a
try with traditional herbs."
In the beginning, Dr. Zhao
said he began by mixing
herbs and oils that were
traditionally believed to
stimulate hair growth,
things like the dried
Rhizome of Rehmannia or
tubers of multiflower knot
weed.
I Kept On Working
After about 40 failures, Dr.
Zhao said, he was ready to
throw up his hands. "People
said I was mad," he said.
"They scorned me. They
didn't think I would be
successful. That did it. I
kept on working."
While he was working on a
solution, his money ran out
and he had to rent out one
of the three rooms of his
house to another villager.
"I still didn't have enough
money," he said, "My wife
said that she would support
me and she started raising
pigs and chickens."
What the Liniment
Contains
Altogether, Dr. Zhao said,
he whipped up 101 different
mixtures before he hit on
the right concoction Word
spread. First villagers from
around his home county came
by, then people beyond the
county. "In the first group
of 50 patients, the
concoction was quite
effective," the doctor said.
"I made some changes and the
effect was even greater."
What did the trick, Dr. Zhao
said, was the careful
blending of ginseng, the
root of membranous milk
vetch, Chinese Angelica, a
type of Aconitum, dried
ginger, walnut meat,
salflower, the root of
red-rooted Salvia, a
psoralea and alcohol.
Word spread some more. In
1976, a reporter from
Hangzhou came by to look
into rumours that there were
no bald men in Dr. Zhao's
county anymore. The
reporter, Pan Guozheng,
happened to be bald.
"He came to see me," Dr.
Zhao said. "Of course he
didn't believe anything, but
I gave him some of my
medicine and after about
three months, his hair began
to grow again. Then he wrote
a report. That was the
start."
Success
The newspaper invited Dr.
Zhao to Hangzhou to try his
remedy in the big city. Over
several years, he said, he
treated more than 1,000
patients there with a
success rate of more than 90
percent.
In Beijing, a group of city
officials heard of advancing
hairlines down south and
sent a delegation to see
what the excitement was
about. By this time, Dr.
Zhao said, he had compiled a
hefty caseload of satisfied
patients and had his
liniment certified by the
provincial authorities as
effective.
Officials from Beijing's
Bureau of Civil Affairs
wooed the good doctor with
promises of housing, a
factory of his own and fame.
So in 1986, Dr. Zhao moved
to the capital and set up a
plant to produce "101 Hair
Regeneration Liniment."
Word spread and soon Dr.
Zhao found himself traveling
to Hong Kong and Japan
bearing hope for the
hopeless. Then, last
October, he was awarded the
top prize at the 38th
Brussels Eureka World Fair,
a gathering of inventors
from around the globe. Dr.
Zhao was made a Chevalier
and awarded a lustrous white
cross dangling from a red
ribbon.
