Q: Who invented shampoo? -- G.D., Suffolk.

A: The first known mention of shampoo is from the 4th century B.C., when Greek historian Strabo wrote about India's practice of shampooing. The word is from the Hindu word champo, meaning to massage or knead.

Shampoos came into fashion in 19th-century England, where hairdressers offered patrons various kinds of hair-washing and scalp massage. The first commercial shampoos were introduced in Germany in the 1890s, but Americans had to wait for John Breck.

In 1898, Breck, a fireman with the Chicopee, Mass., Fire Department, was 21 years old and losing his hair. At the time Americans washed their hair with the same bar of soap they used on their bodies. Breck was unwilling to accept his hair loss, so he began taking chemistry classes at Amherst College in his spare time, determined to find a cure.

He earned a doctorate, and opened a scalp treatment center in 1908 where he used his own liquid shampoo. His hair lotions, called shampoos, became popular with local beauty salons. By the 1930s, he had become a national manufacturer, but he never was able to cure his own baldness.