Very often, in recipes it is indicated that it is required to take a certain amount of an ingredient indicated in tablespoons or teaspoons. Therefore, to translate the product into milliliters or milligrams, you need to know the volume of a tablespoon.
It is believed that in modern Russia or in the countries of the former CIS, the spoon for the first holds 18 ml of liquid. In other countries, the volume of a tablespoon is different: in the USA, as well as in Canada and New Zealand, this volume is expressed in the figure of 15 ml. In Australia, a tablespoon holds a little more - 20 ml.
This confusion is a bit confusing, isn't it? And if you look into the drawer with cutlery, then almost every housewife will find that in her arsenal there are spoons of completely different samples. So the certainty that each of them has a volume of 18 ml melts without a trace.
Of course, if the hostess undertakes to salt cabbage or pickle vegetables, a very big problem does not arise when reading the recipe. But using this device to measure drugs without first calculating its volume is not recommended.
How can you calculate the volume of a tablespoon? Very simple! True, for "laboratory work" you need some sort of container with divisions (today such beaker glasses often appear on sale) or a faceted glass with a risk, with a capacity of 200 ml.
A tablespoon, we must fill the glass with water according to the marks. The device should be tried to fill as much as possible, as they say, "with a slide", do not spill water from it past the glass. Each filling must be noted, for example, set aside a coin or throw a pea in a cup. Of course, you can write on paper - as you like more. But it is better not to rely on your own memory, as it is easy to lose count.
After enough water has accumulated (at risk in a glass), you should do arithmetic calculations. For example, I had 13 tablespoons of water in my glass. So 200 ml is needed: 13 = 15.4 ml. From this I conclude that the volume of a tablespoon that I have is 15.4 ml, and not 18 at all, as many ancient reference books assure.
The second "laboratory work" will be aimed at finding out how many milliliters of bulk products a tablespoon can hold. Honey mushrooms are carried out similarly to the first, only we replace the water with flour or sugar, semolina or salt.
Two calculations can be made: for a spoon that we fill “without a slide” and for one filled with a top.
In the same way, you can calculate the dessert capacity or the volume of a teaspoon. The accuracy of these calculations is, of course, approximate. It depends on the number of "overflows" in the glass. That is, the more of these actions, the more approximate the result. And, accordingly, the less you have to pour water with a spoon, the more accurately you can calculate the indicator of interest.
So, the calculation of the volume of a tablespoon is more accurate than a tea. However, most of the manipulations with the latter indicate that almost all modern Russian teaspoons contain 5 ml of liquid.
All sorts of reference books claim the same. When asked how much ml is in a teaspoon, they give the answer that in Russia and the countries of the former CIS this device has a volume equal to 5 milliliters.
The volumes of teaspoons in the USA and England vary slightly. It is indicated that in the United States of America it is 4.93 ml, and the English contains only 3.55 ml.
As for medicines, most often today in a pharmacy a consumer receives medicine or syrup, to which a device for consumption is applied, mainly a plastic spoon of the required volume. So in this case, problems should not arise.
The difficulty is only the manufacture and use of drugs made according to the recipe of traditional medicine. For accuracy, you can save pharmacy measurements that are sold with drugs.