Editing Serpent symbolism (section)

===Modern medicine===
{{See also|Caduceus as a symbol of medicine}}
[[File:Star of life2.svg|thumb|upright|The [[Star of Life]] features a Rod of Asclepius.]]
Snakes entwined the staffs both of [[Hermes]] (the [[caduceus]]) and of [[Rod of Asclepius|Asclepius]], where a single snake entwined the rough staff. On Hermes' caduceus, the snakes were not merely duplicated for symmetry, they were paired opposites. (This motif is congruent with the [[phurba]].) The wings at the head of the staff identified it as belonging to the winged messenger [[Hermes]], the Roman [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]], who was the god of magic, diplomacy and [[rhetoric]], of inventions and discoveries, and the protector both of merchants and that allied occupation, to the mythographers' view, of thieves. It is however Hermes' role as [[psychopomp]], the escort of newly deceased souls to the afterlife, that explains the origin of the snakes in the caduceus, since this was also the role of the Sumerian entwined serpent god [[Ningizzida]], with whom Hermes has sometimes been equated.

In [[Late Antiquity]], as the arcane study of [[alchemy]] developed, Mercury was understood to be the protector of those arts too and of arcane or occult "Hermetic" information in general. [[Chemistry]] and medicines linked the rod of Hermes with the staff of the healer Asclepius, which was wound with a serpent; it was conflated with Mercury's rod, and the modern medical symbol—which should simply be the rod of Asclepius—often became Mercury's wand of commerce. Another version is used in alchemy where the snake is crucified, known as [[Nicolas Flamel]]'s caduceus. Art historian Walter J. Friedlander, in ''The Golden Wand of Medicine: A History of the Caduceus Symbol in Medicine'' (1992), collected hundreds of examples of the caduceus and the rod of Asclepius and found that professional associations were just somewhat more likely to use the staff of Asclepius, while commercial organizations in the medical field were more likely to use the caduceus.