"The physician's cane is a very ancient part of his insignia. It has nearly gone into disuse; but until very recently no doctor of medicine would have presumed to pay a visit, or even be seen in public, without this mystic wand. Long as a footman's stick, smooth, and varnished, with a heavy gold head, or a cross-bar, it was an instrument with which, down to the present century, every prudent aspirant to medical practice was provided. The celebrated gold-headed cane which Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pitcairn, and Baillie successively bore, is preserved in the College of Physicians, London. It has a cross-bar, almost like a crook, in place of a knob. The knob in olden times was hollow, and contained a vinaigrette, which the man of science held to his nose when he approached a sick person, so that its fumes might protect him from the disease." The cane, doubtless, came from the wand or caduceus of Mercurius, and was a "relic of the conjuring paraphernalia with which the healer, in ignorant and superstitious times, always worked upon the imagination of the credulous." The present barber's pole originated with surgeons. The red stripe represented the arterial blood; the blue, the venous blood; the white, the bandages. The superstitious ancients showed more wisdom in their selections of names, as well as in emblems, than we do in retaining them. Heathen worship and mythological signs are mixed and interwoven with all our arts, sciences, and literature. Our days of the week were named by the old Saxons, who worshipped idols--the sun, moon, stars, earth, etc., and to their god's, perpetual honor gave to each day a name from some principal deity. Thus we are idolaters, daily, though unconsciously. I think not one person in a thousand is aware of this fact; therefore I give a sketch of each. SUNDAY. The name of our first day of the week, Sunday, is derived from the Saxon _Sunna-dæg_, which they named for the sun. It was also called _Sun's-dæg_. [Illustration: SUN--Sunday.] As the glorious sunlight brought day and warmth, and caused vegetation to spring forth in its season, warmed the blood, and made the heart of man to rejoice, they made that dazzling orb the primary object of their worship. When its absence brought night and darkness, and the storm-clouds shrouded its face in gloom, or the occasional eclipse suddenly cut off its shining, which they superstitiously attributed to the wrath of their chief deity, it then became the object of their supplication. With them, and all superstitious people, all passions, themes, and worships must be embodied--must assume form and dimensions, and as they could not gaze upon the dazzling sun, they personified it in the figure of a man--as being superior to woman with them--arrayed in a primitive garment, holding in his hand a flaming wheel. One day was specially devoted to sun worship.