Edited sentence: Apologists have suggested that the sign is appropriate for military medical personnel because of the connotations of neutrality.However, attempts have been made to argue that the caduceus is appropriate as a symbol of medicine or of medical practitioners.Some have pointed to the putative origins of the caduceus in Babylonian mythology (as described above), particularly the suggested association with Ishtar as "an awakener of life and vegetation in the spring" as justification for its association with healing, medicine, fertility and potency