The staff, then, in the hand of Æsculapius may have had its prototype in the Phallus,—truly both an expressive and sublime symbol, when contemplated by pure, enlightened minds.
But, notwithstanding what I have said, one might present some arguments in favor of the view that the staff of Æsculapius had its true prototype in a magic wand or symbol of office. As will be pointed out later, the Accadio-sumerian, Silik-mulu-khi, the beneficent son of Hea, subsequently Marodach or Marduk of the Babylonians and Assyrians, a healing divinity, from whom the conception of Æsculapius may have partly sprung, carried a reed when attending to his duties.
I may say, too, that some hold the staff in the hand of the Egyptian Thoth to have been the original of the one accorded Æsculapius. Thus, in an excellent and finely illustrated essay, W. R. Cooper says: “When once the uræus had been associated with the idea of divinity, the Theban priests, rightly desiring to ascribe the gift of life and the power of healing to the Deity alone, significantly enough twined the serpent around the trident of Jupiter Ammon and the staff of Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus, the author of medicine, to imply the source from which that subordinate demigod’s virtues were derived. From this, in the later periods of her history, Egypt remitted to Greece, along with the so-called forty-six hermetic treatises, the traditional caduceus or serpent-sceptre of Cyllenius[171] and Æsculapius, and, by subsequent transformation of the same deities into a feminine form, the snake and bowl of Hygeia, the goddess of health.”[172] The “serpent-sceptre” which Egypt “remitted” to Cyllenius and to Æsculapius must have changed greatly in the passage, for it is anything but alike as seen in the hands of the two, and in neither case is it very similar to the asserted original. As well or better to take the staff and serpent to be the serpent-bearing tree,—the tree of life in miniature.
However, the fact remains, as already stated, that Æsculapius had no wand; that is, a rod of magic power. The very different personage, Hermes, as also Iris, the female messenger of the goddesses, had a wand or, rather, caduceus, which, strange to say, is taken by many to be a symbol of medicine; that is, the caduceus of Hermes, which is not of medical import at all, is accorded to Æsculapius, who really had none. I repeat: there is no such thing as an Æsculapian wand, if wand be taken to mean a rod possessed of wonder-working power. But, of course, the serpent-bearing staff of Æsculapius is an expressive medical emblem.[173] I give an example after one in a plate in De Wilde’s rare old book.[174] One might take the serpent to be a symbol of the god and the staff as symbolic of the moving of the physician from house to house in the exercise of his profession. Regarding the knots as expressive of difficulties in the art and practice of medicine is very fanciful, but not infrequently done. It is proper to observe, however, that the physician’s staff in modern times is smooth, as will be pointed out later.
I deem it not amiss to give a cut of the caduceus of Hermes, in the hope of better removing misapprehension in regard to it. I give it as shown on the seal of the United States Marine-Hospital Service. It is an appropriate trade symbol, Hermes being the god of commerce[175] as well as the messenger of the gods; but it is more especially a symbol of peace, the god being the great peace-maker. (See [Fig. 5].)
Fig. 4.—Staff and Serpent of Æsculapius.
Traditional history relates that, in his rambles one day, Hermes saw two snakes fighting, and, laying his wand—which was originally an olive-branch received from Apollo—between them, was delighted to discover that it had the power of putting an end to the encounter, and of turning the two into friends. Hence the presence of the two serpents on the wand, the virga of the Romans. The tradition was likely in the nature of an after-thought. If the two serpents be taken to represent two contending persons, or nations, the mission of the ambassador with his wand or mace, the symbol of authority, is well indicated.
