Customer Reviews

The Golden Wand of Medicine: A History of the Caduceus Symbol in Medicine (Contributions in Medical Studies)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Two serpents twined about a staff, the Caduceus, is now very widely accepted as the symbol of medicine. Dr Friedlander traced the provenance and evolution of the symbol back through the ancient mythologies in which it was born, disentangling its usage and the line of its development from that of the similar, single serpent wound on the Staff of Aesculapius. It emerges as more than a little astonishing, at least to me, that the two symbols retained through more than two millennia of common usage their distinct and different identities. The Caduceus had nothing to do with health, healing or medical arts in all that time, while the Staff of Aesculapius clearly did. Then in the first quarter of our own century the United States Army, resolute in error as armies tend to be, adopted the Caduceus as the insignia of its newly created medical arm. The power of the military's influence displaced the Aesculapian Staff from its mythic place altogether, and substituted the Caduceus to be the new symbol of medicine. This was a bit of a perversion: through centuries it had been the sign of a sly trickster and messenger. Trust the military to mess things up. Myths encapsulate our values, pervade our language and enrich its meaning. I suppose it's too much to hope we might treat them with respect for their origins. But this fascinating, short book, meticulously documented, may at least set us straight on where the Caduceus came from, before we forget the ancient god of healing and his one-serpent staff. In our age graphical symmetry ranks well above fidelity to tradition, and extinguished gods are pretty much all the same.

The first rewiew of the medical caduceus as a subject in it's own right. It's basic premise is that the caduceus of Mercury traditionally has little relation to magic...so how did it come to appear ever where in medicine ? I've read most of this information in pieces else where but it's generally hard to find and I've even seen it stated incorrectly by classics professors, here it all is, in one place, for that rare person who mixes their medicine with their magic. There's actually a few different reasons that seem to have worked together; mostly involving the military and book publishing insigniers, it's are all well covered here. Friedlands writing can get a little dry but his attention to detail is commendable. My only regret is that he chooses not to delve deeper into the lesser known staff of Aesculapius (one snake), as the original western symbol of healing, this would have truely completed the topic for me.