The Collaborative International Dictionary
Materia medica \Ma*te"ri*a med"i*ca\ [L. See Matter, and Medical.]
Material or substance used in the composition of remedies; -- a general term for all substances used as curative agents in medicine.
That branch of medical science which treats of the sources, nature and properties of all the substances that are employed for the cure of diseases, primarily with natural preparations, rather than pure or synthetic medicines; pharmacognosy.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"substances used in medicine," Latin, literally "medical matter."
Wiktionary
n. (context medicine English) The study of the origin, preparation, dosage and administration of medical drugs; the substances so used.
WordNet
n. the science or study of drugs: their preparation and properties and uses and effects [syn: pharmacology, pharmacological medicine]
Wikipedia
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). The term derives from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica, 'On Medical Material' (Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς in Greek). The term materia medica was used from the period of the Roman Empire until the 20th century, but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by the term pharmacology.
Usage examples of "materia medica".
We have a few medecines, as the bark, opium, mercury, which in a few well defined diseases are of unquestionable virtue: but the residuary list of the materia medica, long as it is, contains but the charlataneries of the art.
The exams at the end of the year are on materia medica, clinical medicine, surgery, a bit more physiology and anatomy.
The Four Greater Cold Seeds of the old materia medica were the seeds of the Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), the Gourd (C.
It was at one time included in the London Materia Medica as a vulnerary herb, but modern official medicine does not recognize its virtues, though it is still fully appreciated in herbal practice as a mild astringent and tonic, useful in coughs, diarrhoea and relaxed bowels.
His lordship had an idea that it might be a drug of some kind, and, since a Healer has all kinds of materia medica around, I thought perhaps we might be able to identify it.
As Editor I have confirmed her facts with those in Bentley and Trimen's Medicinal Plants in four volumes, Clarke's Dictionary of Materia Medica in three volumes, and Potter's Cyclopaedia of Botanical Drugs and Preparations.
The medicinal use of the berries was familiar to all the writers on botany and materia medica of the sixteenth century, though Dodoens in his Herbal wrote: 'They be not meat to be administered but to the young and lusty people of the country which do set more store of their money than their lives.
It is a wholesome drink and is still considered serviceable in pectoral complaints and in cases of weakness of the digestive organs, being stimulating and tonic, though it has long been discarded from the Materia Medica as an official plant, in favour of others of greater certainty of action.
Afterwards, the price fluctuated, but the root is still eagerly purchased by Chinese traders for export to China, and at the present time commands a yet higher price in the American markets, though it is not an official medicine and has only a place in the eclectic Materia Medica.
An excellent illustration is given of the drug in Pereira's Materia Medica, Vol.
The whole herb is employed, and both this and the preceding species were formerly included in the Secondary List of the Materia Medica of the United States.
These woolly hairs are mentioned in Greenish's Materia Medica, and also in the British Pharmaceutical Codex, as a feature of Dandelion root, but no mention is made of them in the Pharmacographia, nor in the British Pharmacopceia or United States Pharmacopceia, and it is probable, therefore, that Russian specimens have been used for describing the root, and that the root with brown woolly hairs belongs to some other species of Taraxacum.
The root was included in the Materia Medica of the London Pharmacopoeias of the eighteenth century, under the name of R.
The crates were now outward bound -- again quite authentically -- to the Rodriquezes' ship, with whose fleet's traders Avakian had a longstanding relationship, exchanging rare but legal heathen materia medica for Nova Terran exported remedies.
I wanted to talk to you about the pharmaceutical potential of some of the materia medica you have discovered on your charming planet, but Portia thought we should just begin taking samples.