The expression, “hair of the dog that bit
you” refers to an old method of treating a rabid dog bite by
placing hair from the same dog on the wound. We now use it to
acknowledge the practice of soothing a hangover (actually alcohol
withdrawal) by ingesting the same substance that caused the
problem. The earliest known reference to the phrase "hair of the
dog" in connection with drunkenness is found in a text from
ancient Ugarit dating from the mid to late second millennium.
This
metaphor first surfaced in a 1546 collection of English colloquial
sayings: “What how fellow, thou knave, I pray thee let me and my
fellow have a haire of the dog that bit us last night. And bitten
were we bothe to the braine aright.”
Applied
to drinks, it means, if overnight you have indulged too freely,
take a glass of the same drink to soothe the nerves. "If this dog
do you bite, soon as out of your bed, take a hair of the tail the
next day." Aristophanes used the Latin 'similia similibus
curantur' (like cures like) and it exists today as the basic
postulate of classical homeopathy.
During
the 1930s, cocktails known as Corpse Revivers were served in
hotels.
The
Hungarian translation to English is, "(You may cure) the dog's
bite with its fur," but has evolved into a short 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, or "curarse la
cruda" in Spanish is often used. In Costa Rica the same expression
is used but it refers to a pig as in: hair of the same pig.
In
some Slavic languages (Polish, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian,
Slovenian and Russian) hair of the dog is called "a wedge" (klin),
as in dislodging a stuck wedge with another one, which is used
figuratively with regard to alcohol and in other contexts. The
proper Russian term is – опохмелка "after being drunk", which
indicates a process of drinking to decrease effects of drinking
the night before.
In
German, drinking alcohol the next morning to relieve the symptoms
is sometimes described as ein Konterbier trinken "having a
counter-beer." In Austria people have a reparatur-seidl
"repair-beer." In Portuguese people speak of uma rebatida "a hit,"
meaning to strike away the hangover with more alcohol. There
is a new Belgian beer called Snuffles and it is brewed
exclusively for dogs. Maybe a new term, 'Hair of the Human' will
come into vogue.