On the proposal to introduce a new grain weight / by G.E. Paget.
- Paget, Sir George Edward, 1809-1892.
- Date:
- [1862]
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.
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![drachms ; or, if of the largest kind, may be expressed by the pound of 7000 grains, which is an exact multiple of the drachm. Perhaps a still better (and the simplest) plan would be, for all quantities less than a pound, to prescribe in grains alone—in standard grains alone. The cal- culations between large and small quantities would always be easy, because the standard pound is a large round number (7000) of grains. We should have weights of 100, 200, 500, and 1000 grains, such as are now occasionally used in scientific investiga- tions. There would be no difficulty in writing our prescriptions. The small quantities, which more com- monly occur in prescriptions, would require no altera- tion from our present forms, and for even the largest quantities the change would be easy. Fiye hundred grains (gr. d) is as easily written as V]. Fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand grains, are likewise easily written, either in the ordinary figures, or as gr. l, gr. c, or gr. M. As the grain would not be changed, all the brass loeights now in use for dispensing might still be used. A single ordinary set of the small weights might be made to serve for dispensing any drug not exceeding 250 grains in weight. If any new weights were needed, they would be one of 300 grains, and one of 500 grains; and these would only be required in cases in which ounce weights are now used. No other weights woixld be needed for dispensing and compounding on a moderate scale ; and if larger weights were needed, they would be the ordinary avoirdupois pound, half- pound, and quarter, which are in common use in every shop and most private houses, and which weigh respectively 7000, 3500, and 1750 grains.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22272136_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
