Antlers, arrows and ammonium salts

摘要

CONTINUING my series of pieces on the arms of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, I come now to the device of the stag. The heraldic description includes the terse phrase, "on a Chief Azure a Stag lodged also of the First", which may be translated as, "on the mid-blue upper part of the shield, a golden stag, lying down and facing left". (The phrase "of the First" means gold because that is the first colour mentioned in the shield's description.) As with the shield's other devices, the Society's founders left no indication as to why they chose a stag. The animal once had a range of symbolic meanings and was linked with purity, strength, fortitude and fleetness.