A Brief History of Hair Transplants

In the past decade hair transplant surgery has become more and more popular. The natural-looking scar-free results of today’s advanced hair transplant procedures have helped to contribute to this increase in demand. But hair transplants have had an interesting history most people don’t know about.

History of Hair Transplants

The very first hair transplant happened in the 19th century. A man named Menahem Hodara who attempted to reverse hair loss from a disease known as “favus” in 1887, by extracting a band of tissue from the scalp and relocating it to target areas.

In the 1930’s the modern hair transplant techniques started in Japan. The Japanese initially invented hair transplants to treat the hairs like eyebrows and eye lashes and not so much for hair transplants on the scalp. Unfortunately, the Japanese didn’t receive worldwide recognition and it wasn’t long before it was eclipsed by World War II.

In the 1950’s an American dermatologist, Dr. Norman Orentrich, recreated the Japanese experiment. What he was attempting to do was to reverse the effect of baldness. Prior to that research, there was speculation that the relocation of follicular units wouldn’t adapt and survive in their new location. Orentrich stood his ground and argued that the follicular units were in a dormant state and that they would continue to thrive in their new location.

The success Orentrich enjoyed drove scientists to focus efforts to advance the extraction techniques in modern hair transplantation. Instead of extracting bands of tissue, they developed a method to extract individual grafts. The extraction phase has improved from the plug, to the strip and the size of the removed strip has continued to reduce in size until follicular unit extraction (FUE) was invented.

The Follicular Unit Extraction Hair Transplant

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE Hair Transplants) has revolutionized the hair transplant industry because if offers a completely natural looking hair restoration that is completely scar-free. Unlike traditional follicular unit transplants, FUE extracts grafts individually with the use of a micro-sized punch that isolates healthy, random grafts to be extracted. This minimally invasive graft harvesting technique doesn’t create the highly visible scarring that you get with the FUT method.

Artas Robotic FUE Hair Transplants: A Closer Look

Follicular unit transplantation (FUT) harvest grafts by excision of a band of skin from the donor area to obtain the needed follicular units. This method requires stitching which heals with a visible scar that limits what hairstyles a patient can wear afterwards.

Hair transplantation has continued to evolve and have become less invasive and the end results have become more and more natural looking. FUE hair transplants offer patients a chance to have hair that looks natural and it is your own natural growing hair.

Proven Hair Restoration Solutions in McLean, Virginia

If you are looking for results more quickly there are solutions that can help with receding hairlines. At Grow Your Hair Back™ Medical Hair Restoration in McLean, Virginia, we offer a variety of clinically proven, state-of-the-art hair restoration solutions and clinically proven hair loss solutions for men and women. Schedule a free, confidential hair restoration consultation and we can discuss with you the solutions that are right for your type of hair loss.