was equivalent to the Roman denarius, or one eighty-fourth of a pound.
A writer in the Lancet of August 18, 1906, very confidently attributed these signs to the abbreviations made by the copyists of ancient manuscripts in the Middle Ages. One of the old abbreviation marks is still familiar in the z, which appears in "oz." and "viz." The z was formerly a , which was largely used to indicate that the word had been abbreviated; in the cases quoted from onza and videlicet. Palæontologists say that the was itself a modification of the mark ";" which was a common contraction at the end of words ending in bus or que. Thus, for instance, omnibus and quaque would be written omni; and qua;. It is alleged that in writing ; without removing the pen from the paper, something like will result. This is interesting, but it does not explain how the abbreviation came to signify drachm.
The Lancet writer further stated that the was a slurred form of writing oz., and that the scruple sign was a ligature representing the letters sr.
It may be added that among the old manuscript signs is often used for ejus. I am not, however, prepared to suggest any connection between this word and a scruple.
Rx
Paris, in "Pharmacologia," pages 13 and 14, makes the statement that "such was the supposed importance of planetary influence that it was usual to prefix a symbol of the planet under whose reign the ingredients were to be collected; and it is not perhaps generally known that the character which we at this day place at the head of our prescriptions, and which is understood and supposed
