Materia medica
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'''''Materia medica''''' is a [[Latin]] [[medicine|medical]] term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing. Nowadays we would call these [[drug]]s. 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==
One of the best-known early uses of the term was in the title of a work by the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] physician [[Dioscorides]] in the first century AD, entitled ''de materia medica libri quinque'' (concerning medical matter in five volumes). This famous commentary covered about 500 [[plant]]s plus a number of therapeutically useful animal and mineral products.
Later in the [[Islamic Golden Age|medieval Islamic world]], [[Muslim Agricultural Revolution|Muslim botanists]] and [[Islamic medicine|Muslim physicians]] significantly expanded on this knowledge. For example, [[al-Dinawari]] described more than 637 plant drugs in the 9th century,<ref name=Fahd-815>{{citation|last=Fahd|first=Toufic|contribution=Botany and agriculture|pages=815}}, in {{Harv|Morelon|Rashed|1996|pp=813-52}}</ref> and [[Ibn al-Baitar]] described at least 1,400 different plants, [[food]]s and drugs (300 of which were his own original discoveries) in the 13th century.<ref name=Diane>Diane Boulanger (2002), "The Islamic Contribution to Science, Mathematics and Technology", ''OISE Papers'', in ''STSE Education'', Vol. 3.</ref>
The [[experiment]]al [[scientific method]] was introduced into the field in the 13th century by the [[Al-Andalus|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]].<ref>{{Citation
|first=Toby
|last=Huff
|year=2003
|title=The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West
|page=218
|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]
|isbn=0521529948
}}</ref>
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==
*[[Homeopathic Materia Medica]]
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
*{{Harvard reference
|last1=Morelon
|first1=Régis
|last2=Rashed
|first2=Roshdi
|year=1996
|title=[[Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science]]
|volume=3
|publisher=[[Routledge]]
|isbn=0415124107
}}
==External links==
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=lRsIAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:Materia+intitle:Medica+inauthor:Dioscorides&lr=&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 Materia Medica by Dioscorides]
* [http://www.tibetanmedicine-edu.org/en/ttmateriamedica.html Tibetan Materia Medica]
[[Category:Pharmacology]]
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