page_title: Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
section_title: Motto and arms
hierarchical_section_title: Worshipful Society of Apothecaries / Motto and arms
caption_attribution_description: English: Emblem above the south gate of the Chelsea Physic Garden (Worshipful Society of Apothecaries)
context_page_description: The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London is one of the livery companies of the City of London. It is one of the largest livery companies and ranks 58th in their order of precedence.
  The society is a member of the London Museums of Health & Medicine and its guild church is the Church of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe.
  The Society's modern roles include educational, charitable and social activities, in addition to supporting the City of London, its governance and the Lord Mayor of the City of London.
context_section_description: The Society was granted Arms by William Camden (Clarenceux) on 12 December 1617, less than a week after receiving its Royal Charter – the efficiency possibly indicating some planning of the break from the Grocers' Company. The Society was not as speedy in settling its bill from the College of Arms however, as payment for the grant was not directed by the Court until April 1620.
  Described in the blazon of the Society's Grant of Arms of 1617 as "the inventor of physic" [i.e. medicine], Apollo is depicted in the coat of arms with his head radiant, overcoming pestilence which is represented pictorially by a wyvern (a "serpent" in the blazon). Apollo was the father of Asclepius and therefore grandfather of Hygeia (goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation), Panacea (goddess of universal health), Iaso (goddess of recuperation from illness), Aceso (goddess of the healing process), and Aglaea (the goddess of beauty, splendor, glory, magnificence, and adornment).
  His usual attributes are a bow and arrow.
  
  The Society motto – which, unusually, is specified in the blazon of the Grant of Arms and is therefore immutable – is Opiferque Per Orbem Dicor, a Latin part-quotation from Ovid referring to the Greek deity Apollo, meaning: "and throughout the world I am called the bringer of help". The full quotation, from the first book of Metamorphoses (Daphne and Apollo), which describes what Apollo says when he and Daphne are struck by Cupid's arrows but Daphne flees from him, puts the motto in context and makes it particularly relevant to apothecaries:
   
  Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem dicor, et herbarum subiecta potentia nobis. Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis; nec prosunt domino, quae prosunt omnibus, artes!
  (Medicine is my invention, throughout the world I am called the bringer of help, and the power of herbs is under my control [but] alas for me, love cannot be cured by herbs, so the skills which help everyone else do not benefit their master.)
  The Society's supporters are golden unicorns, and its crest is a rhinoceros. The unicorns may have been a compliment to James I, and the horns of unicorns and of the rhinoceros are reputed to be of medical use. The illustration of the crest in the Grant is based on Dürer's 1515 depiction of a rhinoceros, an animal which he had never seen but which he drew from a description – the dorsal horn may have been intended to be on the dorsum of its nose, rather than on the animal's back.
  The illustration in the original grant of arms accords the Society the helmet of a Peer (noble), and the text specifies the red/white mantling usually associated with a Peer. This is specific and unusual, although it is not unique (peers' helmets are also borne with some apparent authority by the Fishmongers', Goldsmiths' and Clockmakers' companies). 
  The use of the term 'Society' rather than the usual 'Company' is purely traditional, though – the charter and grant themselves use both terms, as do grants to other City companies (including the Bowyers, Framework Knitters, and Fanmakers).
caption: Shield and Crest of the Apothecaries 
  over the south gate of the Chelsea Physic Garden
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