Blog Marco

This symbol used in the medical profession actually has a name - call it "Word for the Day" or "Random facts" but this medical symbol with the winged staff and two serpents (snakes) wrapped around the staff has a name: It's a caduceus. Or caducei if there are more than one. In Greek mythology such a staff was carried by Hermes. Hermes is the is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of commerce in general, and of the cunning of thieves and liars. Hermes was usually portrayed wearing a broad-brimmed traveler's hat or a winged cap (petasus), wearing winged sandals (talaria), and carrying his Near Eastern herald's staff -either a caduceus entwined by copulating serpents, or a kerykeion topped with a symbol similar to the astrological symbol of Taurus the bull. Hermes wore the garments of a traveler, worker, or shepherd. Useless but interesting information about the caduceus.

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