Coat of arms

Our motto: Amicus Humani Generis

The translation is ‘Friend of the Human Race’.

This sums up the role of members of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, who are concerned about people’s health, safety and wellbeing – the things that are crucial to life itself.

Nobody knows where the motto came from, although it was employed by the Association long before the coat of arms was adopted in 1958. Its philosophy remains at the heart of our work.

Our arms: an interpretation

The golden pentagram that adorns the shield is known in heraldry as the symbolum sanitatis or 'symbol of health' – the traditional emblem of the CIEH in its various incarnations through the years.

Above the pentagram is the closed helm associated with impersonal coats of arms. On the top of this a phoenix rises from the flames, representing the new association arising from the old. The coat of arms was designed after the Sanitary Inspectors' Association changed its name to the Association of Public Health Inspectors. Because another body at the time had a phoenix in its coat of arms, two distinguishing small stars are inserted into the wings of the CIEH’s phoenix.