Talk:Apothecaries' system

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Contents 1 The mysterious numbers 2 Comma/decimals in numbers 3 Other Apothecaries' systems 4 New version of the article

[edit] The mysterious numbers

What are those numbers after the nbsps in the table? We should either have a proper column for them, or zap 'em altogether. -- John Fader 01:08, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In international style, groups of three numbers are often separated by spaces instead of commas, because in most countries the comma is used as the decimal point instead of the period: 1,234 can be misinterpreted as one and two hundred thirty-four thousandths instead of one thousand two hundred thirty-four. However, Wikipedia's style guide says to use a comma as a thousands separator, so I have edited the article to conform. Indefatigable 02:39, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally I'd have nothing there (i.e. no space or comma) but the MoS trumps me, I guess. I was mostly confused because it was in a table, and I was worried that this was a mysterious fourth column that had become misplaced. It's much clearer now; thanks for solving the mystery for me. -- John Fader 03:12, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comma/decimals in numbers

I'm confused by the numbers -- in keeping with the rest of the site, numbers like 373.241,72 should be written as 373,241.72, shouldn't it? Or is the thousands separator actually being used in the decimal place, so the number really is 373241.72? It's a bit confusing.

In accordance with the manual of style, the article uses periods (full stops) as decimal points and commas as thousands separators -- an apothecaries' pound is about 373 g. Sorry, I don't see how it's confusing. Could you elaborate? Indefatigable 13:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other Apothecaries' systems

It could be noted that the size of the unit varied by country, and was largely displaced by the Metric System in Europe. By "Muret Sanders enzyklopädisches Wörterbuch der Englischen und Reutschen Sprache" [1900] gives the units proportionally in ratio, the pounds being
350.78325 g Prussia, Meklenberg, Hanover, Saxony, Weimer (= 12/16 Prussian pound
357.6476 g In Wutenberg
357.6639 g in Kursland
357.8538 g in Nuremburg and a great part of Germany
360.0000 g in Baden and Lubeck (based on metric units)
375.0000 g in Switzerland and Bavaria (based on 12/16 pound, pound = 500 g)
420.0450 g in Austria (12/16 Pfund; all their weight units are 6/5 of the Hansiatic pound)

In Russia, the pound was 8064 doli, or 7/8 of the funt, translates as 358.3236125 g.

Wendy.krieger 11:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New version of the article

The article only dealt with the weight system in English speaking countries and the Imperial measure system in England (which was not the same as that in the US). It also ignored the history of the system. I corrected these things in my sandbox, and got a bit carried away. The result is essentially a comprehensive new article. I hope it's comprehensible in spite of the wealth of information,. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)