What does the red and white swirl on a barber shop symbolize?

Question

I remember I read somewhere that it symbolized something back then. First person to give the correct answer with a website to back it up gets 10 points!

Answer 1

it goes back to when barbers used to preform operations and surgery. The red is a wound and the white is the bandage  

Answer 2

Blood and bandages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber's_po...

Answer 3

barbers used to do minor surgery (aside from yanking out bad teeth) so the red was the blood and the white was the gauze or packing to stanch the bleeding

Answer 4

Dude, Google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber's_po...

Answer 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber's_po...