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Previous Volume 328:1427 May 13, 1993 Number 19 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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(Contributions in Medical Studies. No. 35.) by Walter J. Friedlander. 181 pp., illustrated. New York, Greenwood Press, 1992. $45. ISBN 0-313-28023-1.

In the United States, by 1900, the staff of Aesculapius (in heraldry, a knotty rod, sometimes fruited and leaved, with a snake entwined) had been confused with the caduceus of Hermes (a winged staff, with two snakes intertwined). This book describes how the staff of medicine got mixed up with the caduceus, symbol of trade, commerce, communication, and thieves. The staff, in heraldry, means medicine, but the caduceus appears -- among other places -- in the crest of Lloyds' Register of Shipping and the arms of Kharkov (Ukraine), Tampere (Finland), and Puerto Rico. Heraldry is symbols; for example, the 16th-century . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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