Retail prescription drugs in the US are
over $200 billion annually. The origin of the Rx symbol comes from
medieval time as an abbreviation for a form of the Late Latin word
recipere meaning 'to take' or the imperative form of recipe,
meaning 'take'.
By the late 1500s it came to mean medical prescription. This
meaning lasted until the mid-1700s, when it was also applied to
food preparation.
Physicians typically begin their directive with the command
recipe, abbreviated to Rx. Other abbreviations used in the medical
field for charting are “dx” (diagnosis), “sx” (signs and
symptoms), and “hx” (history). Incidentally, females in the US
fill almost fifty percent more prescriptions per capita than
males.