Vintage 1960s Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine Decal ⚕️ DO Caduceus Embla Crest Sticker

Remember Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine Decals? ⚕️ Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine "D O" Decal, Sealed on Its Card

Size: 3" ~ Unopened, little to no wear. ~ It is unknown if the adhesive still works, as that is usually the first thing to fail.

A great one for the D.O. in your life! This is a vintage 1960s self-stick decal for a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, still sealed in its bag on the original card. It's a round gold-edged disc with a big green cross on red, the letters D and O on the arms of the cross, and a gold caduceus, the winged staff with two snakes, running right down the middle. The adhesive may have gotten tired after all these years, so a dab of glue might help if you want to put it up.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• D O (on the cross), with the caduceus
• EMBLA CREST, EASY TO APPLY-SELF-STICK, 49¢ (on the green card)

The same decal also turns up on a yellow METALICAL card, "49¢, CLEAN SURFACE, PEEL OFF, STICK ON," and both kinds are in the photos. Embla Crest decals were put out by the Atlantic Emblem Co. of Walterboro, South Carolina; one of their cards prints the company's Walterboro name right under the Embla Crest banner.

🐍 A Fun Tidbit About That Caduceus

Here's a fascinating tidbit about this decal, and it comes straight from me. The caduceus in the design has an intriguing history. It was originally the staff of Hermes, the Greek god of commerce and negotiation, and somewhere along the way in the USA it got mixed up with the Rod of Asclepius, the traditional symbol of medicine, which has a single snake and no wings. We still see the two used interchangeably today, which adds a little extra intrigue to this doctor's decal.

🩺 The D.O.

D.O. stands for Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. Osteopathic medicine was founded by Andrew Taylor Still, a frontier physician who started it as a protest against the medical system of his day, and in 1892 he opened the first school, the American School of Osteopathy, now A.T. Still University, in Kirksville, Missouri. Vermont was the first state to give D.O.s the same legal rights as M.D.s, in 1896, and it went state by state after that until Mississippi became the last, in 1973. In the middle of it all, in 1962, California voters did away with osteopathic practice there, and about 86 percent of the state's D.O.s took the California Medical Association up on its offer of an M.D. degree for a short seminar and $65. That's the very decade this decal was made.

🏡 Display

It's a perfect gift for a D.O., a medical student, or anybody who works in medicine, and it looks great framed right on its card in an office or a clinic.