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The apothecaries' system, or apothecaries' weights and measures, is a historical system of mass and volume units that were used by physicians and apothecaries for medical prescriptions and also sometimes by scientists. [1][2][3] The English version of the system is closely related to the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being ...
In the apothecaries' system, which was widely used in the United States until the middle of the 20th century, [15] the dram is the mass of 1 ⁄ 96 pounds apothecaries (lb ap), or 1 ⁄ 8 ounces apothecaries (oz ap or ℥) [5]: C-7 (the pound apothecaries and ounce apothecaries are equal to the troy pound (lb t), and troy ounce (oz t ...
A grain is a unit of measurement of mass, and in the troy weight, avoirdupois, and apothecaries' systems, equal to exactly 64.798 91 milligrams. It is nominally based upon the mass of a single ideal seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance, the average masses of wheat and barley grains were part of the legal definitions of ...
The former Weights and Measures office in Seven Sisters, London (590 Seven Sisters Road). The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial [1] or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed through a series of Weights and Measures Acts and amendments.
The troy pound (5760 grains) was used for precious metals, the apothecaries' pound, (also 5760 grains) was used by pharmacists and the avoirdupois pound (7000 grains) was used for general purposes. The apothecaries and troy pounds are divided into 12 ounces (of 480 grains) while the avoirdupois pound has 16 ounces (of 437.5 grains).
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in both the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement.Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly 0.453 592 37 kilograms, and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. [1]
However, apothecaries' weight has now been superseded by the metric system. One important difference is the widespread use in Britain of the stone of 14 pounds (6.350 293 18 kg) for body weight; this unit is not used in the United States, although flour was sold by a barrel of 196 pounds (14 stone) until World War II.
Such scales are used to make the most accurate of fine measurements, such as in the needs of empirical chemistry. Avoirdupois (/ ˌævərdəˈpɔɪz, ˌævwɑːrdjuːˈpwɑː /; [1] abbreviated avdp.) [2] is a measurement system of weights that uses pounds and ounces as units. [3][4] It was first commonly used in the 13th century AD and was ...