Mercury rises for Venus...
QUESTION
Why is Venus hotter than Mercury?
EVEN though Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun in the solar system, it is not as hot as Venus. It nips around the Sun in an 88 Earth-day orbit at an average distance of 36million miles (60million kilometres). It spins on its axis quite slowly, taking nearly 59 Earth days for one revolution.
Having no atmosphere to speak of, Mercury heats up on its day side to a maximum of 427C, with a night temperature of minus 173C.
The excess heat radiates back into space during the time of darkness. Venus is the next closest planet to the Sun.
It travels around the Sun at an average distance of 67million miles (108million kilometres). It has a very dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid at a pressure of 92 times that of our atmosphere. It spins backwards, which means the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East.
Another oddity is that Venus takes 225 Earth days to orbit the Sun and 243 Earth days for a single revolution around its own axis, which means its day is longer than its year. Our threat of global warming is nothing compared to Venus. The surface temperature is the same, day or night: 467C, which is hot enough to melt lead, due to the Sun’s radiant heat trapped by the immensely dense atmosphere. It’s like Dante’s vision of Hell.
John Langley, Vectis Astronomical Society,
Newport, Isle of Wight.
QUESTION
Judas was paid 30 pieces of silver for identifying Christ to the authorities. What was its value then and what would it be worth today?
AS MATTHEW 26:14-16 attests: ‘Then one of the Twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.’
Matthew used the word argyria, which means ‘pieces of silver’, so we do not know what the coins were. In AD33, possible silver coins included Tyrian shekels, Staters of Antioch, Ptolemaic tetradrachms and Roman denarii.
Scholars believe Tyrian shekels are the most likely candidate.
These coins were the size of a modern Israeli half-shekel and were issued by Tyre between 126BC and AD56. They were often called tetradrachms because they weighed four Athenian drachmas.
They had 94% silver, while Romans were 80%. They were the coins that priests required as payment for the Temple Tax, despite having the Phoenician god Baal engraved on one side. The Tyrian shekel is believed to have been worth three to four Roman denarii, so 30 would be equal to a maximum of 120. The denarius was the daily wage for a labourer, so it represented a third of a year’s wages. Today’s spot price for silver is 50p (55c) per gram. As 30 Tyrian shekels contain 420g of silver, this would be worth £210 (€231). The value of ancient coins is greater than their silver content. Tyrian shekels trade for £1,000 (€1,100) each, so a hoard of 30 would be worth at least £30,000 (€33,000).
Adam Ward, Salisbury, Wiltshire.
QUESTION
How did an apothecary develop into a chemist and finally a pharmacist?
THESE three words reflect the changing way in which medicines have been dispensed.
The word apothecary derives from apotheca, meaning a place where wines, spices and herbs were stored. An apothecary, therefore, was the custodian of an apotheca. As most ancient medicines were derived from herbs, the apotheca was the place to buy basic ingredients.
In time, apothecaries started concocting their own remedies. Many of these were effective against day-to-day ailments, such as indigestion and mild fevers, and are still used in herbal and mainstream medicines.
Apothecaries had their own guild. In 1180, in England, they were called the Guild of Pepperers and were joined in 1316 by the spicers. The guild dealt ‘en gros’ (basically) with foodstuffs, giving us the word grocer. The Honourable Company of Grocers was formed in 1428, subsuming the earlier guild. By the Tudor era, the spicers were only concerned with the mixing of remedies. They operated independently of physicians and people could consult either. Those practising apothecary skills tried to break away from the grocers, but were prevented from doing so until 1617, when they were granted a royal charter to form the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries, which still exists.
Pharmacology is the medical discipline involved in the study of medicines and their actions on the human body.
The word derives from the Ancient Greek pharmakeia, meaning the practice of the druggist, and is unrelated to herbs and spices. This discipline goes back at least as far as the Middle Ages. Strictly speaking, a pharmacist wouldn’t be involved in the selling of drugs. However, to sell drugs legally, a retailer has to have the relevant qualifications, and those are in pharmacy, hence the use of the term.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was established in 1841 to introduce professional standards into a largely unregulated retail trade.
Until then, anyone could sell drugs, many of which were useless as medicines and some of which were poisonous. The society lobbied for changes to the law to limit the selling of drugs to those qualified to do so. Their concerns led to changes to the way poisons were sold, particularly arsenic.
The first exams were set by the society in 1852 and an external degree in pharmacology, at the University of London, was approved in 1924. In 1988, the Queen granted a royal charter, making it the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
The term chemist is a catch-all word for someone who mixes chemicals. Strictly speaking, it is the discipline within science involved in the study of chemical elements. As a pharmacist also studies the way chemicals work and often mixes them to make drugs, the term became associated with them.
Shops appear to have started calling themselves chemists rather than apothecaries around 1841, which would coincide with the founding of the Pharmaceutical Society. As a way of reclaiming their professionalism, most chemist shops refer to themselves as pharmacies; the public still use the term chemist, and apothecary has become obsolete.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.