U+2108 "℈" Scruple Unicode Character

U+2108 "℈" Scruple is a typographic symbol derived from the history of pharmacy and medicine, where it represented a scruple, an ancient unit of weight equivalent to 1/24 of an apothecaries' ounce or 20 grains. In modern contexts, it is rarely used in everyday writing but persists in historical or specialized texts related to pharmacology, alchemy, or weights and measures. The character is encoded in the Unicode block for letterlike symbols, which includes other archaic units and abbreviations, and it serves as a digital representation of a notation that was once standard in prescriptions and apothecary records. Its presence in Unicode preserves a small piece of scientific and linguistic history for digital communication.