Materia medica is a
Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing (i.e.,
medicines). In Latin, the term literally means "medical material/substance". The term was used from the period of the
Roman Empire until the twentieth century, but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by the term
pharmacology.
History
thumb|Byzantium, 15th century./" class="wiki">Dioscorides,
De Materia Medica,
Byzantium, 15th century.
thumb|Dioscorides De Materia Medica in Spain, 12th-13th century./" class="wiki">Arabic,
Spain, 12th-13th century.
Pedanius Dioscorides is famous for writing a five volume book in his native
Greek Περί ύλης ιατρικής (
De Materia Medica - in the latin translation) that is a precursor to all modern
pharmacopeias, and is one of the most influential herbal books in history. In fact it remained in use until about CE 1600.
The earliest compilation of medicinal substances was the
Sushruta Samhita, an Indian
Ayurvedic treatise attributed to
Sushruta in the 6th century BC. The text describes 700 medicinal plants, 64 preparations from mineral sources, and 57 preparations based on animal sources. One of the best-known early uses of the term 'materia medica' was in the title of a work by the
Greek physician
Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, entitled
de materia medica libri quinque (concerning medical matter in five volumes). This famous commentary covered about 500
plants along with a number of therapeutically useful animal and mineral products.
The earliest
Chinese manual of materia medica, the
Shennong Bencao Jing (
Shennong Emperor's Classic of Materia Medica), was compiled in the first century AD during the
Han dynasty, but it was attributed to the mythical
Shennong. It lists some 365 medicines of which 252 of them are herbs. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript
Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments, found in the Mawangdui tomb, which was sealed in 168 BC. Succeeding generations augmented the
Shennong Bencao Jing, as in the
Yaoxing Lun (
Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Herbs), a 7th century
Tang Dynasty treatise on herbal medicine.
Later in the
medieval Islamic world,
Muslim botanists and
Muslim physicians significantly expanded on the earlier knowledge of materia medica. For example,
al-Dinawari described more than 637 plant drugs in the 9th century,
[, in ] Ibn al-'Awwam described 585
microbiological cultures (55 of which concern
fruit trees) in the 12th century, and
Ibn al-Baitar described more than 1,400 different plants,
foods and drugs, over 300 of which were his own original discoveries, in the 13th century.
[Diane Boulanger (2002), "The Islamic Contribution to Science, Mathematics and Technology", OISE Papers, in STSE Education, Vol. 3.] The
experimental
scientific method was introduced into the field of materia medica in the 13th century by the
Andalusian-Arab botanist Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, the teacher of Ibn al-Baitar. Al-Nabati introduced
empirical techniques in the testing, description and identification of numerous materia medica, and he separated unverified reports from those supported by actual tests and observations. This allowed the study of materia medica to evolve into the
science of
pharmacology.
Avicenna's
The Canon of Medicine (1025) is considered the first
pharmacopoeia, and lists 800 tested drugs, plants and minerals.
This was followed by other pharmacopoeia books written by
Abu-Rayhan Biruni in the 11th century,
Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) in the 12th century (and printed in 1491), and
Ibn Baytar in the 14th century. The origins of
clinical pharmacology also date back to the
Middle Ages in Avicenna's
The Canon of Medicine,
Peter of Spain's
Commentary on Isaac, and John of St Amand's
Commentary on the Antedotary of Nicholas. In particular, the
Canon introduced
clinical trials,
[David W. Tschanz, MSPH, PhD (August 2003). "Arab Roots of European Medicine", Heart Views 4 (2).]randomized controlled trials,
[Jonathan D. Eldredge (2003), "The Randomised Controlled Trial design: unrecognized opportunities for health sciences librarianship", Health Information and Libraries Journal 20, p. 34–44 [36].][Bernard S. Bloom, Aurelia Retbi, Sandrine Dahan, Egon Jonsson (2000), "Evaluation Of Randomized Controlled Trials On Complementary And Alternative Medicine", International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care 16 (1), p. 13–21 [19].]and
efficacy tests.
[D. Craig Brater and Walter J. Daly (2000), "Clinical pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Principles that presage the 21st century", Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 67 (5), p. 447-450 [449].][Walter J. Daly and D. Craig Brater (2000), "Medieval contributions to the search for truth in clinical medicine", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43 (4), p. 530–540 [536], Johns Hopkins University Press.]During the
Middle Ages and the
modern era, the body of knowledge termed materia medica was transformed by the methods and knowledge of
medicinal chemistry into the modern scientific discipline of pharmacology.
See also
