rod of Asclepius

{{About-distinguish-text|a rod entwined with one serpent|the caduceus, a staff entwined with two serpents}}

File:Star of life2.svg features a rod of Asclepius]]

In Greek mythology, the Rod of Asclepius (⚕; {{IPAc-en|æ|s|ˈ|k|l|iː|p|i|ə|s}}, {{langx|grc|Ῥάβδος τοῦ Ἀσκληπιοῦ}}, {{transliteration|el|Rhábdos toû Asklēpioû}}, sometimes also spelled Asklepios), also known as the Staff of Aesculapius and as the asklepian,{{cite journal |last=Wilcox |first=Robert A |author2= Whitham, Emma M |title= The symbol of modern medicine: why one snake is more than two |date= 15 April 2003 |url= http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/138/8/673 |journal= Annals of Internal Medicine |access-date=2007-06-15 |doi= 10.7326/0003-4819-138-8-200304150-00016 |volume= 138 |issue=8 |pages= 673–7 |pmid= 12693891|s2cid=19125435 |url-access= subscription }} is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicine. In modern times, it is the predominant symbol for medicine and health care, although it is sometimes confused with the similar caduceus, which has two snakes and a pair of wings.

Greek mythology and Greek society

File:Asklepios - Epidauros.jpg with his serpent-entwined staff; Archaeological Museum of Epidaurus]]

The Rod of Asclepius takes its name from the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicinal arts in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Asclepius' attributes, the snake and the staff, sometimes depicted separately in antiquity, are combined in this symbol.See for example Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.26.1–28.1 (here translated by Jones) 2nd A.D.: "The image of Asklepios is, in size, half as big as Zeus Olympios at Athens, and is made of ivory and gold. An inscription tells us that the artist was Thrasymedes, a Parian, son of Arignotos. The god is sitting on a seat grasping a staff; the other hand he is holding above the head of the serpent."{{full citation needed|reason=Which volume? Which edition?|date=March 2024}}

The most famous temple of Asclepius was at Epidaurus in north-eastern Peloponnese.{{cite web |url = https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/491 |title = Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus |website = UNESCO World Heritage Convention |publisher = United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization |access-date = 12 November 2022}} Another famous healing temple (or asclepeion) was located on the island of Kos, where Hippocrates, the legendary "father of medicine", may have begun his career. Other asclepieia were situated in Trikala, Gortys (Arcadia), and Pergamum in Asia.

In honour of Asclepius, a particular type of non-venomous rat snake was often used in healing rituals, and these snakes – the Aesculapian snakes – crawled around freely on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. These snakes were introduced at the founding of each new temple of Asclepius throughout the classical world. From about 300 BCE onwards, the cult of Asclepius grew very popular and pilgrims flocked to his healing temples (Asclepieia) to be cured of their ills. Ritual purification would be followed by offerings or sacrifices to the god (according to means), and the supplicant would then spend the night in the holiest part of the sanctuary – the abaton (or adyton). Any dreams or visions would be reported to a priest who would prescribe the appropriate therapy by a process of interpretation.{{cite book |last=Sigerist |first=Henry Ernest |title=A History of Medicine |volume=2: Early Greek, Hindu and Persian medicine |chapter= 3, Religious medicine: Asclepius and his cult |pages= [https://books.google.com/books?id=NLbSGvbCvG0C&pg=PA64 64, 65] |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1987}} Some healing temples also used sacred dogs to lick the wounds of sick petitioners.{{cite book |last=Farnell |first=Lewis Richard |title=Greek hero cults and ideas of immortality : the Gifford lectures delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the year 1920 |chapter=Chapter 10, "The Cult of Asklepios" |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/greekherocultsid00farnrich/page/234/mode/2up |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |date=1921}}{{cite book |first1=Gerald David |last1=Hart |first2=Martin St. J. |last2=Forrest |title=Asclepius: The God of Medicine |date=1999 |page= 42 |isbn=9781853154096 |oclc=42579033 |publisher=Royal Society of Medicine Press |location=London}}

The original Hippocratic Oath began with the invocation "I swear by Apollo the Healer and by Asclepius and by Hygieia and Panacea and by all the gods ..."

The serpent and the staff appear to have been separate symbols that were combined at some point in the development of the Asclepian cult.{{cite book |first1=Stephen |last1=Lock |first2=John M. |last2=Last |first3=George |last3=Dunea |title=The Oxford Illustrated Companion To Medicine |date=2001 |isbn=9780192629500 |oclc= 46678589 |edition=3rd |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=261 |quote=In early statues of Asclepius the rod and serpent were represented separately.}} The significance of the serpent has been interpreted in many ways; sometimes the shedding of skin and renewal is emphasized as symbolizing rejuvenation,{{cite book |title=The New Medicine and the Old Ethics |quote=Asklepios' reptile was a healing creature: in ancient mythology the snake, whose skin was shed and rejuvenated, symbolized eternity and restoration of life and health |first=Albert R. |last=Jonsen |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=1990 |pages=122, 123 |isbn=9780674617254 |oclc=21227464}}{{efn|This interpretation was current in Antiquity, as can be seen in an account of Apollodorus: "your marvel at the serpent curling around him and say that it is the symbol of the healing art, because just as the serpent sloughs the skin of old age, so the medical art releases from illness."{{cite book |editor-first1=Emma J |editor-last1=Edelstein |editor-first2=Ludwig |editor-last2=Edelstein |title=Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies | publisher= Arno Press |location=New York |date=1975 |orig-date=1945 |isbn=9780405070099 |oclc=2021782}}{{rp|[https://archive.org/details/asclepiuscollect0000unse_d9n4/page/12/mode/1up 12]}} }} while other assessments center on the serpent as a symbol that unites and expresses the dual nature of the work of the Apothecary Physician, who deals with life and death, sickness and health.{{cite book |quote=[...] the ancient conception of the serpent as the embodiment of the mystery of one absolute life of the earth, which entails a continual dying and resurrection [...] the combination of corruption and salvation, of darkness and light, of good and evil in the Asklepian symbol. |first=Jan |last=Schouten |title=The Rod and Serpent of Asklepios, Symbol of Medicine |date=1967 |page=2 |oclc=657667 |publisher=Elsevier |location=Amsterdam}} The ambiguity of the serpent as a symbol, and the contradictions it is thought to represent, reflect the ambiguity of the use of drugs, which can help or harm, as reflected in the meaning of the term {{transliteration|grc|pharmakon}}, which meant "drug", "medicine", and "poison" in ancient Greek.{{cite book |last=Sigerist |first=Henry Ernest |title=A History of Medicine |volume=2: Early Greek, Hindu and Persian medicine |chapter= 2, Homeric medicine |pages= [https://books.google.com/books?id=NLbSGvbCvG0C&pg=PA27 27{{ndash}}28] |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1987}} However the word may become less ambiguous when "medicine" is understood as something that heals the one taking it because it poisons that which afflicts it, meaning medicine is designed to kill or drive away something and any healing happens as a result of that thing being gone, not as a direct effect of medicine. Products deriving from the bodies of snakes were known to have medicinal properties in ancient times, and in ancient Greece, at least some were aware that snake venom that might be fatal if it entered the bloodstream could often be imbibed. Snake venom appears to have been prescribed in some cases as a form of therapy.{{cite book |first=James A. |last=Kelhoffer |title=Miracle and mission : the authentication of missionaries and their message in the longer ending of Mark |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |location=Tübingen |date=2000 |pages=438{{ndash}}439 |quote=[...] it was known, at least by some people in antiquity, that a snake's venom is not harmful if imbibed, but rather only if it enters directly into a person's blood stream. For example, the first-century CE historian Lucan writes that the younger Cato, when leading his troops through Libya during the Roman Civil War, informed his men about this very point [...] 'The poison of snakes is only deadly when mixed with the blood; their venom is in their bite, and they threaten death with their fangs. There is no death in the cup.{{'"}} He also mentions an account of Cornelius Celsus (first century CE) {{"'}}For a serpent's poison, like certain hunter's poisons..., does no harm when swallowed, but only in a wound{{'"}}. "Likewise, Galen relates a rather peculiar healing by Asclepius involving viper's venom. The god appeared to a wealthy man in Pergamum and prescribed 'that he should drink every day of the drug produced from the vipers and should anoint the body from the outside.' [...] The elder Philostratus describes a similar practice of 'the wise Asclepiads,' who 'heal the bites of venomous creatures... using the virus itself as a cure of many diseases'.}}

The staff has also been variously interpreted. One view is that it, like the serpent, "conveyed notions of resurrection and healing", while another (not necessarily incompatible) is that the staff was a walking stick associated with itinerant physicians.{{cite book |first=Andre |last=Menez |title=The Subtle Beast, Snakes From Myth to Medicine |date=2003 |page=14 |isbn=9780415284981 |oclc=59462472 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=London}} Cornutus, a Greek philosopher probably active in the first century CE, in the Theologiae Graecae Compendium (Ch. 33) offers a view of the significance of both snake and staff:

{{blockquote|text=Asclepius derived his name from healing soothingly and from deferring the withering that comes with death. For this reason, therefore, they give him a serpent as an attribute, indicating that those who avail themselves of medical science undergo a process similar to the serpent in that they, as it were, grow young again after illnesses and slough off old age; also because the serpent is a sign of attention, much of which is required in medical treatments. The staff also seems to be a symbol of some similar thing. For by means of this it is set before our minds that unless we are supported by such inventions as these, in so far as falling continually into sickness is concerned, stumbling along we would fall even sooner than necessary.{{rp|13}} }}

In any case, the two symbols certainly merged in antiquity as representations of the snake coiled about the staff are common.

Confusion with the caduceus

Modern use

File:Flag of WHO.svg, with a rod of Asclepius]]

A number of organizations and services use the rod of Asclepius as their logo, or part of their logo. These include:

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=United States=

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|* Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine

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=Worldwide=

Medical Protection Society
Star of Life, symbol of emergency medical services
World Health Organization

=Variation=

In Russia, the emblem of Main Directorate for Drugs Control features a variation with a sword and a snake on the shield.

Unicode

{{infobox symbol

|name=Staff of Aesculapius

|mark=⚕

|unicode={{unichar|2695|STAFF OF AESCULAPIUS}}

|see also={{unichar|269A|nlink=Staff of Hermes}}
{{unichar|1F54F|nlink=Bowl of Hygieia}}

}}

A symbol for the rod of Asclepius has a code point ({{unichar|2695}}) in the Miscellaneous Symbols table of the Unicode Standard.

=Similar Biblical account=

The rod of Asclepius has been likened to the Old Testament account of Moses's brazen serpent, a sculpture depicting a snake arranged on a rod. According to the Bible story ({{bibleverse|Numbers|21:4–9|KJV}}), the rod had the divine power to protect the Israelites from the bites of venomous snakes if they looked upon it.{{cite book |first1=Gerald David |last1=Hart |first2=Martin St. J. |last2=Forrest |title=Asclepius: The God of Medicine |date=1999 |page= 237-238 |isbn=9781853154096 |oclc=42579033 |publisher=Royal Society of Medicine Press |location=London}}