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Aesculapius
staff
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Medicine and the medical profession have been represented throughout
history by various combinations of a snake or snakes and the caduceus,
each of which has significant meanings.
The word caduceus is derived from a Greek root meaning herald's wand or
badge of office. Originally, the caduceus was an olive branch, but it
was later replaced by a staff entwined with snakes.
The caduceus is
strongly associated with Hermes, the Greek messenger of the gods. He received the staff from Apollo who gave it
to him as a token of admiration to carry as a symbol of his office. According to Apollo, the staff, with its two winged snakes, was to bring peace. The long-standing and abundantly attested historical associations of the caduceus with commerce, theft, deception, and death are considered by many to be inappropriate in a symbol used by those engaged in the healing arts. This has occasioned significant criticism of the use of the caduceus in a medical context.
The medical symbolism
connected to the Aesculapius staff and snake has descended most vividly from Greek
mythology in connection with the healer Aesculapius. Aesculapius'
parents were the mortal Coronis and Apollo, the god who possessed all
medical knowledge. Apollo passed along his healing powers to the
centaur Chiron and gave Aesculapius into his care.
One day Aesculapius saw
a snake crawl from a crack in the earth and entwine itself on his
staff. Aesculapius killed the snake, but immediately thereafter another
snake emerged from the crack carrying an herbal leaf in his mouth; it
placed the leaf on the head of the dead snake, which miraculously
revived.
The serpent became
Aesculapius' constant companion, and Aesculapius became the patron of
the temples of healing that sprang up throughout Greece.
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As god of the high-road and the market-place Hermes was perhaps above all else the patron of commerce and the fat purse: as a corollary, he was the special protector of the traveling salesman. As spokesman for the gods, he not only brought peace on earth (occasionally even the peace of death), but his silver-tongued eloquence could always make the worse appear the better cause.
From this latter point of view, would not his symbol be suitable for certain Congressmen, all medical quacks, book agents and purveyors of vacuum cleaners, rather than for the straight-thinking, straight-speaking therapeutist? As conductor of the dead to their subterranean abode, his emblem would seem more appropriate on a hearse than on a physician's car. |
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—Stuart L. Tyson, "The Caduceus", in The Scientific Monthly | |
caduceus
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