Myth Monday* - The Staff of the Healing God

No, I'm not referring to the medics in the Trojan War whom The Iliad lists, Machaon and Podalirius, 2 sons of Asclepius+, nor to Asclepius' followers, the Asclepiades. Instead, I'm referring to the snake-crawling wooden rod or staff of Asclepius.

Asclepius, son of the sun god Apollo, always seems to have his staff. In statues, it is sometimes partially concealed in his armpit, but he's often leaning on it. There is also a single snake coiled around it. This snake-circled staff has come to be a symbol of medicine.

The Greek messenger god and psychopompos (guider of the souls of the dead), Hermes (sometime son-in-law of Asclepius), has his own messenger's staff, the caduceus or kerykeion, a gift from the sun god Apollo. It has two intertwined snakes. Hermes often holds it upright in his hands. He also holds a wand with which he confers sleep. (Incidentally, the healing god Asclepius is said to have revealed his remedies through dreams.) Despite Hermes' connections with commerce and the dead, it's his caduceus that those of us in the U.S. usually associate with medicine, even when we think we're referring to Asclepius' staff.

This confusion of Asclepius' with Hermes' serpentine staffs has led to studies focusing on the origin/history of a caduceus as a medical symbol and the reason a snake is connected with Asclepius and Hermes. Here are some articles for you to read:

An early article traces the use from the Renaissance:

"The Use of Mercury's Caduceus as a Medical Emblem"
Bernice S. Engle
The Classical Journal, 1929. [JSTOR]

Engle thinks the original use of the caduceus was the result of confusion. It started when a Swiss medical printer Johann Froben (1460-1527) depicted the caduceus. He showed the two snakes, but not the wings. Instead, above the serpents were doves with an inscription in Greek that translates to "'Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.'" Sir William Butts, Henry VIII's doctor made the first medical use of the caduceus. By 1856, the caduceus appeared on U.S. army chevrons for hospital stewards and in 1902, it appeared on the uniforms of army medical officers. In 1912, the AMA decided to use the staff of Asclepius.

Objections to the caduceus stem from symbolism: Hermes is associated with the dead and making money.

An even earlier, seminal article traces the caduceus to the Babylonians:

"Babylonian Origin of Hermes the Snake-God, and of the Caduceus I"
A. L. Frothingham
American Journal of Archaeology, 1916. [JSTOR]

Frothingham cites references to the herald's staff or caduceus evolving from a shepherd's crook. He also argues that the two snakes are of different sexes and serve the same function as the later familiar phallic representation of Hermes. He goes further to say that Hermes was a two-sex snake deity.

Asclepius, too, was sometimes thought of as a snake-god. Pausanias 2.10.2-3 writes:

"The Sikyonians say that the god was carried to them from Epidauros on a carriage drawn by two mules, that he was in the likeness of a serpent, and that he was brought by Nikagora of Sikyon, the mother of Agasikles and the wife of Ekhetimos."

Other articles from the medical field on the topic of the use of the staff of Asclepius or the caduceus include:

• "The Staff of Asclepius: A New Perspective on the Symbol of Medicine"
  Kyle Bradford Jones
  Wisconsin Medical Journal, 2008.

  Jones discusses the ambivalence of the snake as a healing symbol.

• "The Caduceus of Mercury and the Staff of Aesculapius"
  No author listed
  The British Medical Journal, 1924.

  This article discusses the confusion of the staffs, Ovid's picture of Asclepius in his Metamorphoses and the importation of the medicine god to Rome in A.U.C. 462 (you get to do the math) to subdue a plague.

• "The Earliest Medical Use of the Caduceus"
  Gerald D. Hart
  C.M.A. Journal, 1972.

  Hart provides more details than Engle does of the use of the caduceus in the U.S. army and then reveals classical uses of the symbol of Hermes used for medical purposes. It also ties in the use of the caduceus, eye doctors and Homer.

+Other children of Asclepius are: Janiscus, Alexenor, Aratus, Hygieia, Aegle, Iaso, and Panaceia.

* There is already much material on this site on the topic of mythology (especially, Gods and Goddesses and The Stories of the Ancient Greeks). In Myth Mondays I attempt to bring up an element of mythology that is either timely or less well known.