A Cure for Serpents A Cure for Serpents A Cure for Serpents: A Doctor in Africa is a 1955 travel book by Alberto Denti di Pirajno, later the Duke of Pirajno, an Italian doctor, writer and former colonial governor of Tripoli. Set in Libya, Ethiopia and Somaliland, the book is a collection of anecdotes about various places he visited in his work as a physician in North Africa in the 1920s and the people he met, which includes tribal chieftains, Berber princes, courtesans and Tuareg tribesmen and of a lioness, which became part pet and part guard. The book was translated into English in
Caduceus as a symbol of medicine ancient and authentic claim to be the emblem of medicine". Most attempts to defend its use in a medical context date from the last quarter of the 19th century through the first quarter of the 20th, and have been characterized as "based on flimsy and pseudo-historical research". In a survey of 242 logos used by organizations related to health or medicine, Friedlander found that professional associations were more likely to display the rod of Asclepius (62%), while organizations with a commercial focus were more likely to use the caduceus (76%). Hospitals were an exception (37% used a staff of Asclepius