Caduceus as a symbol of medicine worth noting that hospital stewards were not physicians; they played a supporting role preparing drugs for surgeons, supervising nurses and cooks, maintaining accounting and medical records, and in emergencies sometimes performed minor surgery or provided prescriptions. Later, in 1871, the Surgeon General designated the caduceus as the seal of the Marine Hospital Service (destined to become the U.S. Public Health Service in 1912). Gershen states that the change was for aesthetic reasons, whereas Friedlander states the caduceus was adopted by the Marine Hospital Service "because of its relationship with merchant seamen and the maritime industry". The caduceus was formally adopted
It Is Well with My Soul It Is Well with My Soul "It Is Well With My Soul" is a hymn penned by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss. First published in "Gospel Songs No. 2" by Ira Sankey and Bliss (1876), it is possibly the most influential and enduring in the Bliss repertoire and is often taken as a choral model, appearing in hymnals of a wide variety of Christian fellowships. This hymn was written after traumatic events in Spafford's life. The first was the death of his son at the age of two and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which ruined