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There is also good reason to believe that the origin of the caduceus could be from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament to Christians). In Numbers 21:4-9, Moses brings a curse of snakes on the Israelites. He removes the curse by placing a bronze serpent on a staff, which the victim of a snake bite can touch or just look at and be healed. (( Indeed the Staff with a serpent was very symbolic of Yeshua the Messiah, and cleansing from impurities. This was adopted by pagan culture all the way to central Europe. The mythological representation is in order to parallel Hebrew Scripture in the First Covenant(Bible).
Submitted by Birney Dibble, M.D.
Yes, there seems to be evidence that the Aaron's rod and Moses' rod had a "rebirth" in Greek and Roman mythologies. I would like to see more written about that as well. --Kvasir07:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The confusion between the two, which is a modern one, is also noted. Far from being the "origin", the Hebrew tradition represents one local variant of widespread Ancient Near Eastern myth and cult, which also affected archaic Greek myth.--Wetman (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I added the coat of arms of Ecuador. It's small, but a caduceus is the mast of the steamship in the river. I hope I edited the alt text correctly. The flag of Ecuador also could be added. -- Misha Vargas (talk) 21:25, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Coincidentally, I decided to check on a bigger screen and realised that you were correct all along, so I have already reinstated your edit. I have now also changed the caption so that it links directly to the coat of arms page, where the formal description is given.
I don't think the flag would be a good idea since one image is enough to illustrate and the device on the flag is even tinier. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is there, but effectively invisible. I suggest the caption be changed to "On the coat of arms of Ecuador, the ship's mast is a caduceus."