Apothecaries' system measure precious metals and stones. (The troy pound was already declared illegal for most other uses by the Weights and Measures Act of 1878.) In the US, the metric system replaced the apothecaries' system in the United States Pharmacopoeia of 1971. Apothecaries' system The apothecaries' system or apothecaries' weights and measures is a historical system of mass and volume units that were used by physicians and apothecaries for medical recipes, and also sometimes by scientists. The English version of the system is closely related to the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being exactly the same in
Heavy metals for the manufacture of artefacts such as tools, machinery, appliances, utensils, pipes, railroad tracks, buildings and bridges, automobiles, locks, furniture, ships, planes, coinage and jewellery. They are also used as alloying additives for enhancing the properties of other metals. Of the two dozen elements that have been used in the world's monetised coinage only two, carbon and aluminium, are not heavy metals. Gold, silver, and platinum are used in jewellery as are (for example) nickel, copper, indium, and cobalt in coloured gold. Low-cost jewellery and children's toys may be made, to a significant degree, of heavy metals such as chromium,