Vintage 1960s Practical Nurse Decal 🩺 PN Caduceus Embla Crest Foil Sticker, Unopened

Remember Practical Nurse Decals? ⚕️ Practical Nurse P N Self-Stick Decal, Embla Crest, Sealed on Its Card

Size: 3 1/4" ~ Factory sealed, little to no wear. ~ It is unknown if the adhesive still works, as that is usually the first thing to fail.

Here's a 1960s Embla Crest Practical Nurse decal, factory sealed on its card and highly collectible. These are likely the last of their kind in the world, serving as a poignant reminder of a time when we celebrated our community and their contributions. It's a gold foil emblem with P and N on the arms of a cross and a winged, two-snake staff running right up the middle.

This is a finite supply. Nobody's turning out 69-cent foil nurse emblems anymore, and once these sealed cards are gone, they will be very difficult to acquire.

It is unknown if the adhesive still works, as that is usually the first thing to fail. It may require assistance, also known as glue, to affix.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• P N
• Card: EMBLA CREST, EASY TO APPLY-SELF-STICK, 69¢

It's stapled to a coral hang card inside a clear sleeve. The hang hole was punched right through the printed header. Nothing is printed on the back of the card.

🐍 Hermes or Asclepius?

The caduceus was a symbol for Hermes, the Greek God, commerce, and negotiation throughout history. Somehow, in the USA, we got it confused with the Rod of Asclepius, which traditionally was a medical symbol but has only one snake and no wings. Even today, we still use these symbols interchangeably.

These carry the winged, two-snake caduceus, and Washington had a lot to do with that. The Marine Hospital Service chose it for its seal in 1871. The Army Medical Department formally adopted it in 1902, after Captain Frederick P. Reynolds had been told no by the Surgeon General several times and kept asking anyway. The split never really healed. When Friedlander surveyed 242 health logos, 62 percent of the professional associations used the plain rod, and 76 percent of the commercial companies used the caduceus.

👩‍⚕️ The Practical Nurse

Formal training for practical nurses began at New York City's YWCA in 1892. In 1893 that program became the Ballard School of Practical Nursing, named after Lucinda Ballard, an early benefactor. The course ran three months and covered infants, children, the elderly and the disabled, plus cooking, nutrition and basic science. Ballard closed in 1949, but one of its early cousins never did. The Thompson school in Brattleboro, Vermont opened in 1907 and is still running. Boston's Household Nursing School followed in 1918.

The schools banded together in 1942 as the Association of Practical Nurse Schools, later renamed the National Association for Practical Nurse Education and Service. Then their numbers took off. The country had just 11 practical nursing schools in 1930, and 260 more opened from 1948 through 1954. By 1955 every state had a licensing law for practical nurses. Through all of it, the practical nurse was the one at the bedside, taking vital signs, dressing wounds, helping with baths and giving the care that gets people through the day.

The nurses built their own federation too. The National Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses was established in 1949, and it held its tenth convention at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York City in October 1959. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about the meeting in her My Day column and put it plainly: "These practical nurses fill a great need."

🏷️ Embla Crest

Embla Crest sold these on little hang cards priced in cents, not dollars. I have one Embla Crest card that prints the Atlantic Emblem name and Walterboro right under the Embla Crest banner, as Atlantic Emblem Co. of Walterboro, South Carolina. That card has a five-digit ZIP, so it was printed July 1963 or later, and its phone number uses the 803 area code, which Walterboro's corner of the state gave up for 843 in 1998. Two of Walterboro's earliest settlers were brothers, Paul and Jacob Walter, and the town's name was first spelled Walterborough. Today it's the county seat of Colleton County.

🏡 Display

It's a sweet gift for a practical nurse, an LPN, a nursing student or a retired nurse, and it looks great framed right on its card.

Please refer to the pictures. It provides details and is considered part of the description for you.

Give this little piece of vintage memorabilia a place of honor in your room!