The Mistake on the Seal!

I am going to tell you a story about MedChi’s historic seal.

It became part of our “brand” soon after our founding in 1799. Eventually, it was one of several bookplates for book collections that were funded by donors, such as the Frick Family.

It was a rather dour looking piece, with the figure of Aesculapius with his serpent-entwined staff. It was originally rendered in red and black, with deep-set eyes. He was known as “old potato head.”

In our centennial book, there is a slightly different version of the potato head with more hair and more rays emanating from his head.

After we moved into the new building in 1909 and the library continued to grow, we asked the medical illustrator, Max Brödel to design an updated seal for us. You can see the date on Brödel’s original sketch of the seal.

It wasn’t until the 1930’s that it was finally engraved, and hundreds of copies were printed to place in our book collections.

Soon, we received a letter from one of our members, letting us know that there was a mistake on the seal. Around the bottom edge of the seal are a few words in the Greek alphabet. One of the letters is incorrect. 

And because that letter is wrong, it changes the meaning of the sentence! It should read, “A physician is of more value than many other men for the dressing of wounds and the stilling of pain,” from Homer’s Illiad, Book II, Line 514.

The mistake was combining a Greek Z and a Greek X, when there is no such letter. It should have been three parallel lines, with the middle one a little shorter.

The mistake was corrected, and new bookplates were printed.

We still have some digital copies of the mistaken seal, but I try and check to make sure we’re using the correct one.