- my father's kitchen, my mother's kitchen, and my grandmother's kitchen, and my high school home economics class, all from which and whom I was taught. Apothecary As an unofficial but once widely used unit of apothecaries' measure, the teaspoon is equal to 1 fluid dram (or drachm) and thus of a tablespoon or of a fluid ounce. The apothecaries' teaspoon was formally known by the Latin cochleare minus (cochl. min.) to distinguish it from the tablespoon or cochleare majus (cochl. maj.). When tea-drinking was first introduced to England circa 1660, tea was rare and expensive, as a consequence of which teacups and teaspoons were smaller than today. This situation persisted until 1784, when the Commutation Act reduced the tax on tea from 119% to 12.5%. As the price of tea declined, the size of teacups and teaspoons increased. By the 1850s, the teaspoon as a unit of culinary measure had increased to of a tablespoon, but the apothecary unit of measure remained the same. Nevertheless, the teaspoon, usually under its Latin name, continued to be used in apothecaries' measures for several more decades, with the original definition of one fluid dram. See also Bar spoon Caddy spoon, a specialized spoon used for taking dried tea out of a storage container Cooking weights and measures Dessert spoon Tablespoon References Sources External links UK National Health Service (NHS) Spoons give wrong medicine doses (Archived version of "retired" NHS page.) US National Institutes of Health (NIH) MedlinePlus Liquid medication administration Cooking weights and measures Spoons Spoon Units of volume Customary units of measurement in the United States Imperial units Metricated units Alcohol measurement