Facial hair is often indication of times of trouble. The clean-shaven man, when worries, often gives in and grows a beard. Numerous examples abound of this phenomenon. Soumitra, playing Apu in Ray’s Apur Samsar, gives up everything when Aparna dies. When we see him next, he has grown a beard.

But the beard itself is accused of causing misfortune. A report on www.vox.com details how facial hair was often, without evidence, seen to be spreading disease.

The report mentions the first years of the 20th century, when New York City was in the throes of a tuberculosis hysteria. TB had been proved to be contagious. the disease had been an epidemic in the US since the mid-1800s, the rise of germ theory proved, for the first time, that tuberculosis was contagious.

In the madness, nothing fared worse than the beard. Health experts identified whiskers as the “nesting places of disease”, though there was no proof that beards invited germs in.

In terms of bacterial shedding, the report says, “there is no difference in bearded and non-bearded men,” quoting Carrie Kovarik, an associate professor of dermatology and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

But the reservations persisted through the century, which also saw the rise of the clean-shaven “professional” look of men and the rise of the disposable Gillette razor. Gone was the glory of the great 19th century beard. Which leads to the question: Are we prejudiced towards the bearded man now?

The coronavirus crisis may provide some answers.