Too many serpents spoil the symbol

Gert Brieger's review of Gerald Hart's Asclepius: the God of Medicine was most interesting and rightly pointed out that Asklepios' staff with the single serpent (the karykeion) is the symbol of medicine.¹ I wish there had been mention of the fact that the winged 2-serpent wand or caduceus belongs to Hermes, the messenger of the gods. It is frequently used wrongly as a symbol of medicine in pharmaceutical advertisements. The staff of Asklepios was put on a new Canadian quarter a year ago and in the newspapers it was erroneously called the caduceus, which illustrates the confusion on the subject.

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H.J. Scott
Cardiovascularthoracic Surgeon (retired) Montreal, Que.