20,000 drops, pharmaceutically

As a detective, the first step in solving the crossword clue ‘20,000 drops, pharmaceutically’ is to determine what items or concepts relate to medicine and measure in drops. The answer must be a unit of measurement, so I quickly think of milliliters and liters. Upon closer inspection of the clue, I notice the word ‘pharmaceutically’, which gives me a clue that the measurement might be used to describe a medication.

With this in mind, I start to search for medicine that is commonly measured in milliliters or liters. Again, upon closer inspection of the clue, I realize that 20,000 drops is an absurdly high number for any medication measured in milliliters. Therefore, I focus my search on medications measured in liters. Then, it hits me: a liter is equivalent to 20,000 drops!

I am confident that the answer to the crossword clue is ‘LITER’. The next step is to confidently fill in the answer and move forward with the rest of the puzzle. As a detective, this was a great example of the importance of paying attention to the details and using all available clues to solve a mystery.