Caduceus eloquence). The caduceus is often incorrectly used as a symbol of healthcare organizations and medical practice, particularly in North America, due to confusion with the traditional medical symbol, the Rod of Asclepius, which has only one snake and is never depicted with wings. It is thought that this symbol's long lasting association with the medical profession stems from early use of twigs to draw out long bodied inter muscular parasitic worms by wrapping them slowly around the twig so as not to break them or allow them to escape back into the body, a successful treatment still in use today,
Caduceus feature the two snakes atop the staff (or rod), crossed to create a circle with the heads of the snakes resembling horns. This old graphic form, with an additional crossbar to the staff, seems to have provided the basis for the graphical sign of Mercury (☿) used in Greek astrology from Late Antiquity. Caduceus is encoded in Unicode at code point U+2624: ☤. A simplified variant of the caduceus is to be found in dictionaries, indicating a “commercial term” entirely in keeping with the association of Hermes with commerce. In this form the staff is often depicted with two winglets