My other half just asked me

[Soothar]

My other half asked me why we only have one snake on the rod in the EMS star of life. I said, straight faced, "We had to use the other one to start an IV." I got a blank look and then laughter.

[Eydawn]

That's too funny!

The staff with two snakes is the symbol for commerce- it has to do with some Greek deity's staff.

The single staff with a serpent has a lot of ideas as to where it came from. Staff of moses, staff of Hippocrates...

personally, I think the most likely one is the idea that there were parasitic worms that they had to wind out on sticks,

hence the sign of a serpenty thing around a stick. EWW!

Wendy

NREMT-B

CO EMT-B

MI EMT-B

[Defiant1]

:? you mean the reason why there's only one snake on the star of life isn't because they're using the other one to start an IV? oh sure, what next, you gonna say the earth isn't flat? or maybe that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny aren't real. lol i'll have to keep that in mind in case one of my high school classmates asks me the same queston

[Doczilla]

The staff of Aesclepius (the god of medicine) has a single worm on it. Aesclepius was the son of Apollo. He was trained in the healing arts so well that he once raised a patient from the dead. Believing this should be the sole providence of the gods, Zeus killed Aesclepius. Traditionally, healers would use a small stick to extract guinea worms from the skin through an incision. The worm would be wound around the stick as it was extracted over a period of days. This is the traditional symbol for medicine which healers would use to advertise their art, still used today by the AMA and USAF medical departments.

The double serpent staff with wings represents the God Hermes, who is often associated with alchemy. This, like the staff of Aesclepius, was used as a printer's mark in the 18th and 19th centuries. Printers saw themselves as the bringers of wisdom of the gods, using these symbols of traditional knowledge. The association of the double serpent staff with medicine comes from its adoption by the US Army medical department in the early 20th century. Ironically, this is the more widely recognized and used of the two symbols.

The true location of the Aesclepian staff is a secret closely guarded by the Priory of Scion, a shady organization of interns and residents who may or may not be assassinated by creepy albino monks. (random DaVinci Code reference)

'zilla