AMERICANS IN GREAT MEASURE

摘要

When I was 22 years old and a new pharmacy student, I had a measurement epiphany. Its source was a page in a pharmaceutical calculations workbook. At that time, 1974, pharmacy education continued to stipulate that the apothecary measurement system must be mastered by its disciples. So, on one side of the page was an exercise in adding apothecary weights, which were denominated in ounces, drams, scruples, and grains, much like the pre-decimal British currency system of pounds, shillings, and pence. One had to convert everything to grains, get a total of grains, and then re-divide them into their respective units (e.g., there were eight drams to an ounce, three scruples to a dram, 20 grains to one scruple).