Hair of the dog

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This article is about the phrase. For other uses, see Hair of the dog (disambiguation).

Hair of the dog is a colloquial English expression predominantly used to refer to ingestion of alcohol as treatment for a hangover. It is occasionally used with respect to dealing with the after effects of use of other recreational drugs. It is a shortened form of the expression “the hair of the dog that bit you.” The phrase "bite the dog that bit you" is also commonly used in this sense. "Hair off the dog's back" is a slight variation of the term often used in Hiberno-English.

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[edit] Origin and derivation

The origin of the phrase is literal, and comes from an erroneous method of treatment of a rabid dog bite by placing hair from the dog in the bite wound.[1] The use of the phrase as a metaphor for a hangover treatment dates back to the time of William Shakespeare. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer writes in the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898): "In Scotland it is a popular belief that a few hairs of the dog that bit you applied to the wound will prevent evil consequences. Applied to drinks, it means, if overnight you have indulged too freely, take a glass of the same wine next morning to soothe the nerves. 'If this dog do you bite, soon as out of your bed, take a hair of the tail in the morning.'" He also cites two apocryphal poems containing the phrase, one of which is attributed to Aristophanes. It is possible that the phrase was used to justify an existing practice, and the idea of Similia similibus curantur ("like cures like") dates back at least to the time of Hippocrates.

The phrase also exists in Hungarian, where the literal translation to English is "(You may cure) the dog's bite with its fur", but has evolved into a short two-word phrase ("kutyaharapást szőrével") that is used frequently in other contexts when one is trying to express that the solution to a problem is more of the problem. Among the Irish and Mexicans, the phrase 'The Cure' ("curarse la cruda", in Spanish) is often used instead of 'hair of the dog'.[2] It is used, often sarcastically, in the question "Going for a Cure?" In Costa Rica (Central America) the same expression is used but it refers to a pig as in: hair of the same pig ("pelos de la misma chancha" in Spanish) referring to the same method to cure the hangover.

In Polish, hair of the dog is called "a wedge" (klin), mirroring the concept of dislodging a stuck wedge with another one. Similarly, other Slavic languages, such as Russian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Slovene, use the phrase "a wedge dislodges a wedge" (klin se klinom izbija and клин клином выбивают), although it is not normally connected to the alleged hangover medicine. The proper Russian term is - ОПОХМЕЛ ("after being drunk"), which indicates a process of drinking to decrease effects of drinking the night before.

The phrase "hair of the dog" was apparently first employed for a hangover cure in KTU 1.1114 line 29 wherein the chief god of the Ugaritic pantheon, 'i/el, takes some for his health. The usage is a borrowing from Akkadian.[3]

[edit] Scientific background

A hangover is due partly to poisoning by the toxic chemicals into which alcohol is converted by the body and the other components of the alcoholic drink, and partly to the body's reaction to withdrawal from alcohol. The symptoms of a hangover are similar to those of withdrawal, namely a throbbing headache, nausea, and maybe even vomiting. Thus consuming more alcohol ("hair of the dog") may help by blunting some of these symptoms,[4] but will only aggravate the symptoms once the liver breaks the alcohol down, because the body will have additional toxins to deal with. Some researchers have suggested that ethanol may help dilute other alcohols that cause many of the hangover symptoms, but no controlled studies were carried out.[5][6]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Hair of the dog definition - Medical Dictionary definitions of popular medical terms easily defined on MedTerms
  2. ^ Edwards, Steve (2004) A nine-mile walk on an eight-mile road: Terms for various states of drunkenness in Irish-English;
  3. ^ W.M. Schniedewind, J.H. Hunt, A Primer on Ugaritic, p. 121. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 0521704936.
  4. ^ "Delirium tremens:Medication" from eMedicine Ethanol is effective in blunting withdrawal symptoms, but it is no longer indicated because of associated electrolyte abnormalities, potential worsening of gastritis, hepatitis, and pancreatitis. Ethanol use may promote continued ethanol usage.
  5. ^ Jones AW, Skagerberg S, L6winger H. (1987) "Occurrence of methanol in blood and breath after administration of ethanol: Alcoholic beverage congener or raised concentration of an endogenous metabolite?" In Bonte, Wolfgang (ed.) (1987) Congener Alcohols and Their Medicolegal Significance Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, pp 173-182, ISBN 91-86856-02-2
  6. ^ Jones AW, Skaggerberg S, Yonekura A, Sato A. (1990) "Metabolic interaction between endogenous methanol and exogenous ethanol studied in human volunteers by analysis of breath" Pharmacology & Toxicology 65: pp. 48-53

[edit] External links

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