
Asclepios, Aesculapios in latin, was the son of Apollo and god of the Medicine. Once there was a shepherd in Turkey, who was looking after his sheep when a snake bit him in his leg. He had much pain and he went to a Asclepion, a hospital, nearby Pergamum. When he arrived there he asked for help, but the medicin answered: 'This is a hospital for spiritual handicaps. But we can give you a poison so that you will die faster.' They gave him the poison but he didn't die, the two poisons, the one of the snake and the one of the Ascepion, stopped each other.
From that moment the medicine sign is a stick with a snake surrounded and a basin on top of it.

..не нашел однако..
http://www.in-ta.net/info/aesculapius/symbols.html