CHAPTER XV. MEDICAL TALISMANS, 129 CHAPTER XVI. MEDICAL AMULETS, 137 CHAPTER XVII. PHARMACISTS’ SYMBOLS, 149 CHAPTER XVIII. MISCELLANEOUS MEDICAL SYMBOLS, 155 CHAPTER XIX. MEDICAL SYMBOLISM IN PRACTICE, 161 CHAPTER XX. THE PENTACLE, 165 MEDICAL SYMBOLISM. CHAPTER I. REMARKS ON THE MEANING OF SYMBOLS. A symbol is an illustration of a thing which, to use a poetic phrase, is “not what it seems.” When a familiar object, or figure of any kind, from some cause or other, has attached to it a meaning different from the obvious and ordinary one, it is symbolic. Thus, if one take a poppy-head to convey the idea of sleep, it is a symbol; one may regard it as symbolic of sleep, or, if he choose, of Hypnos (Somnus), the god of sleep. The illustration on the next page will afford a still more apt example. To the eye, it appears to be simply a partly coiled serpent resting on a pedestal. That is, in truth, what it is. But, regarded from the stand-point of the student of medical symbolism, it has another and very different signification. Before such a figure many a human being, diseased and suffering, has bowed in reverence and piously offered to it petitions for relief; to many a noble Greek and haughty Roman, indeed, to generations of such, it was a god, the great god of “the divine art,” as medicine was often beautifully called in ancient times. The serpent is the most important of medical symbols.