Caduceus as a symbol of medicine emblem of the physician [...] it is most unfortunate that the 'confusion' exists." In an anonymous rebuttal contained in a letter to the editor published three months later in "The Military Surgeon" it was claimed that the late Col. John R. van Hoff was a member of the board that selected the emblem ("if he was not the one who was chiefly instrumental in its adoption"). In the letter to the editor reproduced by Emerson, the anonymous author claims According to this view the caduceus was not intended to be a medical symbol (and, though explained differently, this reflects the
Caduceus as a symbol of medicine appears in a general medical context in the printer's device used by the Swiss medical printer Johann Frobenius (1460–1527), who depicted the staff entwined with serpents and surmounted by a dove, with a biblical epigraph in Greek, "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16, here in the KJV translation), in keeping with the connotations of the caduceus as a symbol of messengers and publishers based on the association of Hermes or Mercury with eloquence and negotiation. Friedlander observed that Frobenius could hardly be considered a medical printer, as had previously been asserted, noting that in