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A serpent coiled around a stemmed bowl, marking pharmacy.
Also known as: Pharmacy symbol, Snake and cup, Chemist symbol, Hygieia cup, Pharmacy snake symbol
A snake winding around a shallow stemmed bowl marks pharmacy specifically, rather than medicine in general. Hygieia was the daughter of Asclepius, and the split between the two symbols mirrors the split between dispensing and practising.
Identifies pharmacy and the pharmacy profession, appearing on pharmacy signage, professional bodies' emblems and qualifications.
Contexts: Medicine
Distinguishes pharmacy from medicine generally: the Rod of Asclepius marks medical practice, while the bowl marks the preparing and dispensing of remedies.
Contexts: Medicine
Takes its name from Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health and daughter of Asclepius, who was depicted feeding a serpent from a bowl.
Classical Greek antiquity · Contexts: Medicine
Is not used uniformly across countries: the green cross, the red 'A' for Apotheke, and other national marks serve the same role in different places.
A regional limitation. The bowl is common in English-speaking pharmacy practice; it is not a universal pharmacy mark.
Contexts: Medicine
Competes with several national marks that do the same job and look nothing like it. A green cross identifies a pharmacy in France, Spain, Italy and much of southern Europe; a red gothic A stands for Apotheke in Germany and Austria; a mortar and pestle serves in parts of the English-speaking world. A traveller looking for the snake and bowl will often not find it.
Contexts: Medicine, Public information
Is drawn with the serpent approaching the bowl from either side and either coiled round the stem or reaching over the rim; none of the arrangements is standardised, because the mark is a professional emblem adopted by bodies and schools rather than a registered sign.
Contexts: Medicine
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Stemmed chalice form
The bowl drawn as a footed goblet with the serpent coiled around its stem — the form used by most pharmaceutical bodies.
Shallow bowl form
A wide shallow dish with the serpent reaching over its rim, closer to the classical depictions of Hygieia feeding the snake.
A shallow bowl on a short stem, its rim drawn as a wide horizontal curve, with a serpent rising beside it and its body arching over the rim as though drinking.
One snake and a bowl marks pharmacy; one snake and a staff marks medicine.
Both derive from the Asclepius family of healing symbols; the bowl marks pharmacy, the rod marks medicine.
Both show a single serpent coiled around an upright object, which is why they are read as related at a glance.