Re: Classical pathways to western medicine

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 48, No. 10, December 2006, Page 491 Letters

I would like to thank Dr James Warren for a nice overview of Greek classical medicine (BCMJ 2006;48[8]:382-384). But I feel that there may be an error in describing the staff of Aesclepius (Asklepios) as having a double serpent wound around it.

Dr Warren writes: “This is the source of the caduceus—two serpents wound around a staff—that today remains as an emblem of physicians and the practice of medicine.” Indeed it is a description of the caduceus, which is the rod of Hermes (also called Mercury). Hermes represents knowledge and travel among other things. The caduceus is often confused with the staff of Aesclapius, which has only a single serpent and no wings.

The Canadian Medical Association symbol correctly contains the staff of Aesclepius. On the other hand, the US military insignia for its medical corps erroneously uses the rod of Hermes.

The history of medicine and its symbolism is an important and often overlooked topic in most medical programs today.

Thank you Dr Warren for your article.

—Ari Giligson, MD
Delta

 

We are grateful for Dr Giligson’s clarifications. The reference to the caduceus as a symbol of physicians and the practice of medicine was included in the author’s original manuscript, but rather than catching this error, we compounded it by adding the description of its appearance. Clearly, we were suffering from the same confusion as the US military.—Ed

Ari Giligson, MD,. Re: Classical pathways to western medicine. BCMJ, Vol. 48, No. 10, December, 2006, Page(s) 491 - Letters.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply