I have written recently about Galen and Ayicenria, the supporters of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's shield of arms, and now I turn to the motifs on the shield itself. Depicted in the shield's "first quarter" (ie, top left) is "a dove holding in the mouth an olive branch". This motif is, of course, derived from the biblical legend of Noah and the flood. When the 40 days of rain abated, Noah sent out a reconnaissance pigeon, which eventually returned with an olive leaf, thus indicating that the waters were subsiding.
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