On the proposal to introduce a new grain weight / by G.E. Paget.

  • Paget, Sir George Edward, 1809-1892.
Date:
[1862]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the proposal to introduce a new grain weight / by G.E. Paget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    7/14 (page 3)
    REMARKS ON THE INTENDED CHANGE OF THE WEIGHTS USED IN PHARMACY. It is generally understood that the Committee for the Preparation of a National Pharmacopoeia have come to a resolution to make a complete change in the weights for pharmaceutical purposes. The avoirdupois pound and ounce are to be substituted for the troy poimd and ounce, which have hitherto been used in apothecaries' weight; and a new drachm, a new scruple, and a new grain, are to be established. The former of these changes is manifestly desirable. The avoirdupois pound has, by recent enactment, become the standard imperial weight; and the avoir- dupois pound and ounce are those which have long been used in all mercantile transactions, except those of goldsmiths and jewellers. They are the weights which are used by manufacturing chemists, as by all other manufacturers; and their adoption for the dis- pensing of drugs would do away with the ambiguity and inconvenience arising out of the use of two different sets of weights by manufacturing and dispensing chemists. The substitution, therefore, of the pound avoirdu- pois for the pound troy, may be hailed as a sensible improvement; and the corresponding change in the ounce might be allowed to pass unquestioned. But 1877.