Dictionary

materia medica en · NOUN

From Latin māteria (“material”) + medica (“curative, medical”).

(archaic, historical, uncountable) Synonym of pharmacology, particularly its development in early modern Europe.
- Later on, in the Middle Ages, medical knowledge advanced to such an extent that textbooks on materia medica and germane subjects often treated this area of erotica. 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 126:
(archaic, historical, plural, plural-only) Synonym of medicine: the substances so used, particularly traditional cures prepared from animals and plants such as herbal medicines but inclusive of early drugs.
- CHIAN earth, in pharmacy, one of the medicinal earths of the ancients, the name of which is preſerved in the catalogues of the materia medica but of which nothing more than the name has been known for many ages in the ſhops... 1771, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1st ed., volume II, page 183:
- Mary Reynolds could list her physician-owner's entire materia medica (the common term for pharmacological supplies) for slaves in one breathː "Dr. Kilpatrick gave sick [slaves] ipecac and asafoetide and oil and turpentine and black fever pills." 2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Southern Discomfort”, in Medical Apartheid, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 66: