44
The seal of the Ministry of Industrial Affairs is the Seal of Nārāyaṇa Churning the Ocean (see figure 43). This seal was newly created when the Ministry of Industrial Affairs was founded. It is not the same one as the old Seal of Nārāyaṇa Churning the Ocean, which is the official seal of the Department of Warfare, Royal Thai Army.
The seal of the Ministry of Public Health Affairs differs from the seals of the other ministries: it depicts a winged torch with snakes coiling around it (see figure 44), which is the staff of the Roman deity Mercury known as caduceus, used by farangs as a symbol of peace and later as both a symbol of medicine and a symbol of commerce. This seal originally belonged to the Department of Public Health. After the Department of Public Health and the medical services were incorporated into a Ministry of Public Health Affairs, the seal of the caduceus staff became the emblem of the ministry.
