SpudLovers wrote::? We need to know how to convert a (liquid) ml into a (weight) mg. :? Here is the reason, :D we are Guinea Pig owners. We would like to administer 10 - 20 mg of Liquid Vitamin C to them daily. We have a bottle of 4 Fl oz (120 ml) that indicates it contains 24 servings of 500 mg per serving. Guinea care websites suggest we administer 10-20 mg daily to the adult pig . We are using a 1 cc syringe, it does not have a ml measurement on it. Just off the top of our head we estimate we should be giving .25 cc to the adult who weighs two pounds and .1 to the younger pigs who will top out around 1/2 - 3/4 of a pound. This problem is really stretching the limits of my :oops: 3d grade education, can anyone help ? Thanks in advance
This is a question that keep re-appearing in various forms, so don't wory too much about it.
The whole thing hinges around the fact that most people who are not familiar with the metric system, (as well as an astonishing number of those who use it every day!) have no real idea how it was put together.
The simple part. It all starts with a measurement of length. the size of the earth, pole to pole, through an aribtrary point of the earth. We then hacked that up into smaller peiced, always using units of ten, until we got with something we could use. We called it the meter, (or metre), and it was good. We then took this meter, chopped it up a bit smaller, (into hundredth, or centimeters) and made a box. we filled that box with water, and said, "verily, this is our unit of weight. we will call it the gram, and it will be good."
We then decide that if we made the box 100 time bigger, and filled it with water, that this would be our standard of volume. We would call it the liter, and it too would be good.
The story goes on a bit longer, but we can stop here... One cubic centimeter of water weighs one gram, and 1,000 grams of water makes a liter. This means that the cubic centimeter (cc) and the milliliter (1/1000 of a liter) (ml) are exactly the same thing - if you're measuring water.
So, if your vitamin C solution is close enough to the weight and consistancy of water, then 1 ml should be about 1 cc. If not, all bets are off.
Now to apply this to your problem...
120 ml = 24 servings of 500 mg each. 120/24 = 5 ml, so 5 ml = 500 mg.
That means that 1 ml = 100 mg
If you want to give a Guinea Pig 10 mg, he gets 0.1 ml, to give him 20 mg, give him .2 ml.
