text: Until around 1900, medical prescriptions and most European pharmacopoeias were written in Latin. Here is a typical example from the middle of the 19th century.
  The use of Latin ensured that the prescriptions could be read by an international audience. There was a technical reason why 3 ʒ was written ʒiij, and  ʒ as ʒss: Writing iii as iij would prevent tampering with or misinterpretation of a number after it is written. The letters "ss" are an abbreviation for the Latin "semis" meaning "half", which were sometimes written with a ß. In Apothecaries Latin, numbers were generally written in Roman numerals, immediately following the symbol. Since only the units of the apothecaries system were used in this way, this made it clear that the civil weight system was not meant.