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the science or study of drugs: their preparation and properties and uses and effects

the science or study of drugs: their preparation and properties and uses and effects

Materials or substances used in the composition of traditional medical remedies. The use of this term in MeSH was formerly restricted to historical articles or those concerned with traditional medicine, but it can also refer to homeopathic remedies. Nosodes are specific types of homeopathic remedies prepared from causal agents or disease products.

Science pertaining to the characteristics and effects of medicines.

The division of medical science which treats of the knowledge of medicines; their action on the animal economy, and mode of administration. The study of the Materia Medica is one of great importance; it is a study of the tools with which the practitioner has to work in the cure of disease. Much labour has been spent in contriving classifications of the Materia Medica. Some have arranged the articles according to their natural resemblances: others according to their real or presumed virtues: others, according to their active constituent principles. The Pharmacopoeias place them alphabetically. Perhaps the best classification would be one founded on the agency exerted by the articles on the different tissues; but this arrangement, in the present state of science, is by no means easy; and, moreover, ideas in regard to the action of medicines are so associated with certain terms, - as narcotics, tonics, sedatives, &c., employed to denote certain operations, which they are esteemed capable of producing, that, to abandon them, would be to throw obstacles in the way of the student, without the ultimate advantage accruing to him of possessing a better knowledge of the modus operandi of medicines than when a classification, somewhat resembling those usually embraced, is adopted. Of old, the Materia Medica consisted of more articles than at present. The tendency, indeed, is, and must be, to diminish it still further; to get rid of those articles which possess no advantages over others equally common, or whose properties are doubtful. In a dictionary, it becomes necessary to insert all that have been reputed to possess virtues; but the majority are unnecesary. The catalogue might be largely reduced with impunity.

Branch of medical study which deals with drugs, their sources, preparations, and uses.

Material which has medicinal properties, or which is used in medicine.

The science which treats of the substances and agencies used in the practice of medicine. [Lat.]