materia medica

American  

[muh-teer-ee-uh med-i-kuh] / məˈtɪər i ə ˈmɛd ɪ kə /

noun

1. (used with a plural verb) the remedial substances employed in medicine.

2. Also called pharmacognosy.  (used with a singular verb) the science dealing with the sources, physical characteristics, uses, and doses of drugs.

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materia medica British  

/ məˈtɪərɪə ˈmɛdɪkə /

noun

1. the branch of medical science concerned with the study of drugs used in the treatment of disease: includes pharmacology, clinical pharmacology, and the history and physical and chemical properties of drugs

2. the drugs used in the treatment of disease

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Etymology

Origin of materia medica

1690–1700; < Medieval Latin: medical material

Example Sentences

Amazingly, I found spiders' webs and many other materia medica mentioned in the ancient literature when my wife and I visited the shop of a traditional healer in the Turkish city of Konya.

From Slate • Mar. 4, 2012

A man who makes it his business to examine samples of ergot from all countries is Dr. Henry Hurd Rusby, 74, professor of botany, physiology and materia medica at Columbia University since 1888.

From Time Magazine Archive

The university's Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer needed the help of Pennsylvania State College's Dr. Martin Levey, a specialist in the history of science, to figure out the materia medica which the ancient physician was prescribing.

From Time Magazine Archive

Up jumped Dr. Torald Hermann Sollmann, 60, professor of pharmacology & materia medica and dean of Western Reserve University Medical School to sneer that Professor Bancroft's experiments on rabbits and chickens were not sound.

From Time Magazine Archive

Observe, however, that I do not say it cured her; although I might make this affirmation with as much confidence as can justly exist with regard to any thing belonging to the materia medica.

From Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician by Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)