Skip Main Navigation outline goes here The Lancet, Volume 354,
Issue 9173, Page 85, 10 July 1999
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(99)00119-1Cite or Link Using DOI  A
metered way of life  The Lancet Napoleon Bonaparte did not think
much of the metre, while at around the same time early US
presidents were singing the praises of the metric system. Yet
France has long been metric while the USA admits to being the
only country in the industrialised world that has not gone
metric officially, and, if anything is slipping backwards. We
read of signposts on American roads being repainted in miles as
enthusiasm for the kilometre wanes, while local building
regulations return to feet and inches. In science, SI (Système
International d'Unités), which is just the modern version of the
metric system, is well established but in medicine a liking for
“conventional units” has persisted. Some years ago a leading US
medical journal issued its subscribers with a set of conversion
tables for SI units (the 1992 edition is much thumbed by Th