A historic symbol representing a scruple, which is equal to 20 grains or one third of a dram. Pharmacists and physicians formerly used this unit when compounding medications and writing prescriptions. It appears frequently in old medical texts and compounding ledgers.
Heard on the job
The old recipe calls for 2 s of powdered digitalis.
Insider tip
While you will see this in historical archives, current pharmaceutical standards strictly require metric units to prevent fatal compounding errors.
Also heard as
- scruple