The image of serpents wrapped around a staff is a
familiar one in the medical field, decorating pharmaceutical packaging and
hospitals alike. Snakes bites are generally bad news, and so the animal might
seem ill-fitting as the symbol of the medical profession, but the ancient
emblem actually has a quite a story behind it.
There are actually two versions of the symbol. The
winged version is known as a caduceus, andthe stick is actually a staff that
was carried by the Olympian god Hermes. In Greek mythology, Hermes was a
messenger between the gods and humans (which explains the wings) and a guide to
the underworld (which explains the staff). Hermes was also the patron of
travelers, which makes his connection to medicine appropriate because, in the
olden days, doctors had to travel great distances by foot in order to visit
their patients.
In one version of Hermes' myth, he is given the
staff by Apollo, the god of healing . In another version, he receives the staff
from Zeus, the king of the gods, and it is entwined with two white ribbons. The
ribbons were later replaced by serpents, as one story tells that Hermes used
the stick to separate two fighting snakes , who then coiled around his staff
and remained there in balanced harmony.
Another, earlier depiction of the medical symbol
is the staff of Asclepius, thought it has no wings and only one snake. The son
of Apollo and the human princess Coronis, Asclepius is the Greek demigod of
medicine . According to mythology, he was able to restore the health of the
sick and bring the dead back to life.
In one telling, Zeus killed Asclepius with a
thunderbolt for disrupting the natural order of the world by reviving the dead,
while another version states that Zeus killed him as punishment for accepting
money in exchange for conducting a resurrection. After he died, Zeus placed
Asclepius among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus, or "the serpent
bearer."
The Greeks regarded snakes as sacred and used them
in healing rituals to honor Asclepius, as snake venom was thought to be
remedial and their skin-shedding was viewed as a symbol of rebirth and renewal.
Which is a good thing to keep in mind the next time you spot a medical alert
bracelet featuring the seemingly sinister serpents.
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