Society's Coat of Arms

The Arms comprise a shield, helmet, crest and supporters along with a motto which, strictly speaking, is not part of the arms.

The shield, divided down the middle, bears the colours of Australia, green and gold on the right side, and on the left side the colours of New Zealand, black and silver. These four colours were those of the College of Barber surgeons who received a grant to arms in 1569. In the centre of the shield is the badge of the Society. This represents the view seen through a cystoscope of the bladder neck with the lobes of the prostate in red and the urine portrayed in gold.

On top of the shield sits a steel helmet, visored and turned to the right. The mantling originally used to protect the head within the helmet from the heat of the sun is secured to the helmet by a wreath, in turn surmounted by the flowers of the yellow wattle of Australia with the red pohutukawa of New Zealand.

The crest is a lynx, an animal with exceptional vision. The ancients believed such keen vision could not have been provided by two eyes alone and attributed this to some other unknown method - hence the supernumerary eyes scattered throughout its body as coloured circles or roundelles. It holds aloft in its forepaws an ancient instrument called an exploratorium used in the Marian operation for stone first described by Marianus, Sanctus de Bartella in his second book Libellus aureus 1543, a landmark in the history of urology. Around its neck it wears a crown with the seven pointed stars of Australia and the five pointed stars of New Zealand.

On either side of the shield which they support stand St. Cosmos and St. Damian, two early exponents of uroscopy. Twin brothers, Christian doctors, martyred under the Roman emperor, Diocletian, (243-313) they have been the patron saints of barbers and surgeons throughout Europe from the time of the Emperor Justinian (482-565).

The motto Juncta per aquam (Joined across the water), emphasises in a humourous way the union of two countries separated by an ocean working together within their `watery' medium.