What is 5/8ths of 2 ounces, 4 drams and 5 grains? :-)
She was an immigrant from Czechia and had to learn the British Apothecary system when she arrived in the 1950s. To her credit she had mastered it but it was lunacy.
Of course there are fun questions like “which ounce?” Not knowing that I don’t think I can do better.
But I understood "2 ounces, 4 drams and 5 grains" to be a single measurement.
An apothecary dram (ʒ) is 60 grains, and an apothecary ounce (℥) is 480 grains, so we have 1205 grains. ⅝ of that is 753⅛ gr, which is 1 ℥ 4 ʒ 33⅛ gr.
I think these measurements would have been in common use by pharmacists ... although [1] says they're still in use some times in the USA, or have only recently fallen out of use.
It's also interesting to see the mixtures of units in common use there. The UK has Imperial units for several daily things (body height and weight, road distance and speed) yet the medical profession actively avoids use of the system -- equipment is only metric. This is to avoid any errors made during conversion, and ensure day-to-day familiarity with the units.
[1] https://nursekey.com/u-s-customary-units-and-the-apothecary-...
Correct. Three columns required, similar to the old British money system of Pounds, Shillings and Pence.