The Apothecary System


Apothecary Introduction

Apothecary Tutorial

Apothecary Pretest

Back to MAIN MENU		 The apothecary system originated in Greece, but eventually it made its way to England where it was used during the late 1600s. As you might have already guessed, the colonists brought the apothecary system to America where the system evolved and became a modified system of trading measurements. The apothecary system has units that may be puzzling to us, but you can probably figure out where the unit, "grain," came from. It was the weight of a grain of wheat. Just as the length of a king's foot was used as a unit of length in the English system of measurement, the weight of a grain of wheat is used as a unit of weight. But which particular grain of wheat was weighed? We don't know and we don't care. We only need to be consistent with the weight of the wheat grain that was originally used as the standard, just like we're consistent with the length of the king's foot!