Where did the symbol Rx originate in the writing of prescriptions?
The symbol Rx is derived from the major lines in the symbol of the Eye of Horus. Horus was an Egyptian god, the god of Nekhen, a village in Egypt, and god of the sky, of light, and of goodness. He was the son of Isis, the nature goddess, and Osiris, the god of the underworld. Osiris was murdered by his evil brother Seth, the god of darkness and evil. Horus sought to avenge his father’s death by challenging his uncle Seth to a fight. Seth cut out Horus’s eye, but Thoth, a god associated with wisdom and compassion, magically restored the eye. Horus did defeat Seth, finally. Horus’s eye, also called the wadjet eye, became a symbol for health. The Egyptians considered it a symbol of good and restored health. The symbol was passed along through the ages. As William Osler wrote in 1910, “In a cursive form it is found in mediaeval translations of the works of Ptolemy the astrologer, as the sign of the planet Jupiter. As such it was placed upon horoscopes and upon formula containing drugs made
