View source for Materia medica

{{short description|Historical Latin term for pharmacology}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{italic title}}
[[File:ViennaDioscoridesPlant.jpg|right|thumb|Page from the 6th-century ''[[Vienna Dioscurides]]'', an illuminated version of the 1st-century ''De Materia Medica'']]
'''''Materia medica''''' ([[Literal translation|lit.]]: 'medical material/substance') is a [[Latin]] term from the [[history of pharmacy]] for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing (i.e., [[medication]]s). The term derives from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician [[Pedanius Dioscorides]] in the 1st century AD, {{lang|la|[[De Materia Medica (Dioscorides)|De materia medica]]}}, 'On medical material' (Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς, ''Peri hylēs iatrikēs'', in Greek).

The term ''materia medica'' was used from the period of the [[Roman Empire]] until the 20th century,<ref>''Textbook of Materia Medica'', A.S. Blumgarten 1933</ref> but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by the term [[pharmacology]]. The term survives in the title of the ''[[British Medical Journal]]''{{'}}s "Materia Non Medica" column.

==Ancient civilizations==

===Ancient Egypt===
The earliest known writing about medicine was a 110-page Egyptian [[papyrus]]. It was supposedly written by the god [[Thoth]] in about 16 BC. The [[Ebers papyrus]] is an ancient recipe book dated to approximately 1552 BC. It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic [[amulet]]s and spells.<ref name="autogenerated1927">Le Wall, Charles. ''The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines: Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy.'' (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co. Inc: 1927)</ref> The most famous Egyptian physician was [[Imhotep]], who lived in [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]] around 2500 B.C. Imhotep's materia medica consisted of procedures for treating head and torso injuries, tending of wounds, and prevention and curing of infections, as well as advanced principles of hygiene.

===Ancient India===
In India, the [[Ayurveda]] is traditional medicine that emphasizes plant-based treatments, hygiene, and balance in the body's state of being. Indian materia medica included knowledge of plants, where they grow in all season, methods for storage and shelf life of harvested materials. It also included directions for making juice from vegetables, dried powders from herb, cold infusions and extracts.<ref name="autogenerated650">Parker, Linette A. "A Brief History of Materia Medica," in ''The American Journal of Nursing'', Vol.15, No. 8 (May 1915). pp 650-653.</ref>

===Ancient China===
The earliest [[Chinese herbology|Chinese manual of materia medica]], the ''[[Shen nong ben cao jing|Shennong Bencao Jing]]'' (''Shennong Emperor's Classic of Materia Medica''), was compiled in the 1st century AD during the [[Han dynasty]], attributed to the mythical [[Shennong]]. It lists some 365 medicines, of which 252 are herbs. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by the ''[[Wushi'er bingfang|Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments]]'' found in the Mawangdui tomb, which was sealed in 168 BC. Succeeding generations augmented the ''Shennong Bencao Jing'', as in the ''[[Yaoxing Lun]]'' (''Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Herbs''), a 7th-century [[Tang dynasty]] treatise on herbal medicine.

== Ancient Greece ==

===Hippocrates===
In Greece, [[Hippocrates]] (born 460 BC) was a philosopher later known as the Father of Medicine. He founded a school of medicine that focused on treating the causes of disease rather than its symptoms. Disease was dictated by natural laws and therefore could be treated through close observation of symptoms. His treatises, ''Aphorisms'' and ''Prognostics'', discuss 265 drugs, the importance of diet and external treatments for diseases.<ref name="autogenerated650"/>

===Theophrastus===
[[Theophrastus]] (390–280 BC) was a disciple of [[Aristotle]] and a philosopher of [[natural history]], considered by historians as the Father of Botany. He wrote a treatise entitled ''Historia Plantarium'' about 300 BC. It was the first attempt to organize and classify plants, plant lore, and botanical morphology in Greece. It provided physicians with a rough taxonomy of plants and details of medicinal herbs and herbal concoctions.<ref name="autogenerated2">Le Wall, Charles. ''The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines: Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy.'' (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co. Inc: 1927) and Riddle, John M.''Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine.'' (Austin: University of Texas Press,1985)</ref>

===Galen===
[[Galen]] was a philosopher, physician, pharmacist and prolific medical writer. He compiled an extensive record of the medical knowledge of his day and added his own observations. He wrote on the structure of organs, but not their uses; the pulse and its association with respiration; the arteries and the movement of blood; and the uses of [[theriac]]s. "In treatises such as ''On Theriac to Piso'', ''On Theriac to Pamphilius'', and ''On Antidotes'', Galen identified theriac as a sixty-four-ingredient compound, able to cure any ill known".<ref>Findlen, Paula. ''Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Early Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy.'' (Berkeley, Los Angeles, & London: University of California Press, 1994): 241.</ref> His work was rediscovered in the 15th century and became the authority on medicine and healing for the next two centuries. His medicine was based on the regulation of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) and their properties (wet, dry, hot, and cold).<ref>Le Wall, Charles. ''The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines: Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy.'' (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co. Inc: 1927) and Parker, Linette A. "A Brief History of Materia Medica," in ''The American Journal of Nursing'', Vol.15, No. 9 (June 1915). pp 729-734.</ref>

===Dioscorides's ''De materia medica''===
{{main|De materia medica}}
[[File:Dioscorides De Materia Medica Byzantium 15th century.jpg|thumb|[[Dioscorides]], ''[[De materia medica]]'', [[Byzantium]], 15th century.]]
[[File:Dioscorides De Materia Medica Spain 12th 13th century.jpg|thumb|Dioscorides ''De materia medica'' in [[Arabic]], [[Spain]], 12th-13th century]]
The Greek physician [[Pedanius Dioscorides]], of [[Anazarbus]] in Asia Minor, wrote a five-volume treatise concerning medical matters, entitled Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς in Greek or ''[[De materia medica]]'' in Latin. This famous commentary covered about 600 plants along with therapeutically useful animal and mineral products. It documented  the effects of drugs made from these substances on patients. ''De materia medica'' was the first extensive [[pharmacopeia]], including about a thousand natural product drugs (mostly plant-based), 4,740 medicinal usages for drugs, and 360 medical properties (such as [[antiseptic]], [[anti-inflammatory]], [[stimulant]]). The book was heavily translated, and portrayed some of the emblematic actions of physicians and herbalists. One such page is ''[[Physician Preparing an Elixir]]''.

Dioscorides' plant descriptions use an elementary classification, though he cannot be said to have used [[Botanical nomenclature|botanical taxonomy]]. Book one describes the uses for aromatic oils, [[salve]]s and [[topical|ointments]], trees and [[shrubs]], and fleshy fruits, even if not aromatic. Book two included uses for animals, parts of animals, animal products, cereals, [[legume|leguminous]], malvaceous, [[Cruciferous vegetables|cruciferous]], and other garden [[herb]]s. Book three detailed the properties of roots, juices, herbs and seeds used for food or medicine. Book four continued to describe the uses for roots and herbs, specifically [[narcotic]] and poisonous medicinal plants. Book five dealt with the medicinal uses for wine and metallic [[ore]]s.<ref name="Obaldeston">Osbaldeston, Tess Anne ''Dioscorides'' (Ibidis Press, 2000)</ref><ref>Collins, Minta. ''Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions.'' (London: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2000): 32.</ref> It is a precursor to all modern pharmacopeias, and is considered one of the most influential herbal books in history. It remained in use until about 1600 AD.<ref name="Riddle&Linette">Parker, Linette A. "A Brief History of Materia Medica," in ''The American Journal of Nursing'', Vol.15, No. 9 (June 1915). pp 729-734 and Riddle, John M. ''Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine.'' (Austin: University of Texas Press,1985)</ref>

==Medieval==

===Middle Eastern===
[[Avicenna]] (980–1037 AD) was a Persian philosopher, physician, and Islamic scholar. He wrote about 40 books on medicine. His two most famous books are ''[[The Canon of Medicine]]'' and ''[[The Book of Healing]]'', used in medieval universities as medical textbooks. He did much to popularize the connection between Greek and Arabic medicine, translating works by Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen into Arabic. Avicenna stressed the importance of diet, exercise, and hygiene. He also was the first to describe parasitic infection, to use urine for diagnostic purposes and discouraged physicians from the practice of surgery because it was too base and manual.<ref name="autogenerated1927"/>

===European===
In medieval Europe, medicinal herbs and plants were cultivated in monastery and nunnery gardens beginning about the 8th century. [[Charlemagne]] gave orders for the collection of medicinal plants to be grown systematically in his royal garden. This royal garden was an important precedent for [[botanical garden]]s and [[physic garden]]s that were established in the 16th century. It was also the beginning of the study of [[botany]] as a separate discipline. In about the 12th century, medicine and pharmacy began to be taught in universities.<ref name="autogenerated2"/>

Shabbethai Ben Abraham, better known as [[Shabbethai Donnolo]], (913–''c''.982) was a 10th-century Italian Jew and the author of an early Hebrew text, ''Antidotarium''. It consisted of detailed drug descriptions, medicinal remedies, practical methods for preparing medicine from roots. It was a veritable glossary of herbs and drugs used during the medieval period. Donnollo was widely travelled and collected information from Arabic, Greek and Roman sources.<ref name="autogenerated1927"/>

In the Early and High Middle Ages [[Nestorianism|Nestorian]] Christians were banished for their heretical views that they carried to [[Asia Minor]]. The Greek text was translated into Syriac when pagan Greek scholars fled east after [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]]'s conquest of [[Byzantium]],
[[Stephanos]] (son of Basilios, a Christian living in [[Baghdad]] under the Khalif Motawakki) made an Arabic translation of ''De Materia Medica'' from the Greek in 854. In 948 the Byzantine Emperor [[Romanus II]], son and co-regent of Constantine [[Porphyrogenitos]], sent a beautifully illustrated Greek manuscript of ''De materia medica'' to the Spanish Khalif, [[Abd-Arrahman III]].  In 1250, Syriac scholar [[Bar Hebraeus]] prepared an illustrated Syriac version, which was translated into Arabic.<ref name="Obaldeston" /><ref>Karlikata, E.: Dioscorides ve Materia Medica(Kitab'ül Hasayis). Olusum yil 7 Sayi 28 (1999) 50.</ref><ref>Sonneddecker, G. Kremers and Urdang's history of Pharmacy, 3rd edition, Lippincott Company, America 1963 p.15)</ref>

==Early modern==

[[Matthaeus Silvaticus]], [[Avicenna]], [[Galen]], [[Dioscorides]], Platearius and Serapio inspired the appearance of three main works printed in [[Mainz]]: In 1484 the ''[[Herbarius moguntinus|Herbarius]]'', the following year the ''[[Gart der Gesundheit]]'', and in 1491 the ''[[Ortus Sanitatis]]''. The works contain 16, 242 and 570 references to Dioscorides, respectively.<ref name="Riddle&Linette" />

The first appearance of Dioscorides as a printed book was a Latin translation printed at [[Colle di Val d'Elsa|Colle]], Italy by [[Johanemm Allemanun de Mdemblik]] in 1478. The Greek version appeared in 1499 by [[Manutius]] at [[Venice]].

The most useful books of botany, pharmacy and medicine used by students and scholars were supplemented commentaries on Dioscorides, including the works of [[Leonhart Fuchs|Fuchs]], [[House of Anguillara|Anguillara]], [[Andrea Mattioli|Mattioli]], [[Bartolomeo Maranta|Maranta]], [[Cesalpino]], [[Dodoens]], Fabius Columna, [[Gaspard Bauhin|Gaspard]] and [[Johann Bauhin]], and [[Servetus|De Villanueva/Servetus]]. In several of these versions, the annotations and comments exceed the Dioscoridean text and have much new botany. Printers were not merely printing the authentic materia medica, but hiring experts on the medical and botanical field for criticism, commentaries, that would raise the stature of the printers and the work.<ref name="autogenerated2"/>

Most of these authors copied each other, from previous works. It was normal to add previous commentaries and marginalia, to make the text look more enriched or thorough.

There were several De Materia Medica works noted as ''Anonymous A, B, C and D'' by the expert on Dioscorides-De Materia Medica professor [[John M. Riddle]]. The ''Anonymous A'' has to do with authors on translations of handwriting. Riddle proved ''Anonymous C'' to be Bruyerinus Champier.<ref name="autogenerated2"/>

During the 16th century, the most representative among them were [[Ermolao Barbaro]], Jean Ruel, Broyeurinus, Michel de Villeneuva, [[Pietro Andrea Mattioli]], [[Andres Laguna]], Marcello Virgilio, Martin Mathee and [[Valerius Cordus]].<ref name="autogenerated2"/><ref name="Obaldeston" />

In 1789, [[William Cullen]] published his two volume ''A Treatise of the Materia Medica'', which was highly valued by other medical practitioners throughout Europe.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}

===Ermolao Barbaro===
The work of the Italian physician and humanist [[Ermolao Barbaro]] was published in 1516, 23 years after his death. [[Poliziano]] wrote to Ermalao Barbaro, forwarding a manuscript of the 1st-century pharmacologist [[Pedanius Dioscorides]], asking him to send it back "annotated by that very learned hand of yours, thus lending the volume additional value and authority."<ref>‘[A]d me remittes ... pretium volumini aliquod ex te atque auctoritas accedat.’ Poliziano, Letters I.xi:</ref> Barbaro was professor of the [[University of Padua]] in 1477 and translated many texts from Greek to Latin.<ref name="Branca">Branca 1973, Reeds 1976</ref>
He sought to avoid mistakes by gathering as many manuscripts as he could for checking the texts. He claimed to have corrected 5000 mistakes between two editions of [[Pliny the Elder]]'s ''Naturalis historia'',<ref>(2003 Frank N. Egerton Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, A History of the Ecological Sciences</ref> a work he found very similar to ''Materia Medica'', for which he used at least two editions as well.

The result of Barbaro's effort occupied no fewer than 58 pages printed in three columns of about 50 entries each. The work provides a key to over 9,000 items; all references were to pages. This was the first annotated Latin translation of Dioscorides' ''Materia Medica'', and so Barbaro became the earliest of the [[Renaissance]] translators of Dioscorides,<ref name="Branca" /><ref>Richard Palmer
Medical botany in northern Italy in the Renaissance Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Volume 78 February 1985</ref> a practice that saw its golden age in the 16th century. Barbaro's work was later corrected by Giovanni-Battista.

===Jean Ruel===

Jean Ruel was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and physician to King [[Francis I of France]]. He perfected the Latin translation of the ''Materia Medica'' directly from the "''princeps''" edition. He tried to develop a translation joining [[philology]], [[botany]] and [[medicine]]. This work, printed in 1516 by [[Henri Estienne (elder)|Henri Estienne/Stephano]], became very popular, having 20 editions during the 16th century. He published editions until 1537, printed by [[Simon de Colines]].<ref name="autogenerated2"/><ref name="Obaldeston" />

From this point, Latin was the preferred language for presenting De Materia Medica, and Ruel's editions became the basis from which many other important authors would start to create their own Materia Medica. Ruel was also teacher of two great De Materia Medica authors: Michel de Villeneuve and Andres Laguna.<ref name="Obaldeston" /><ref>Universal Illustrated American Encyclopedia</ref>

===Bruyerinus===

Bruyerinus Champier was the nephew of [[Symphorien Champier]], and physician of [[Henry II of France]]. He was an Arabist, and translated works of [[Avicena]].<ref>Singer, Charles Joseph. 'The herbal in antiquity and its transmission to later ages', in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol 47, 1927, pp1-52 & 10 col plates.</ref> In 1550 he published his first Materia Medica, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet in [[Lyon]]s. This work had a second edition in 1552 printed by Arnoullet in Lyon and [[Vienne, Isère|Vienne]]. Both works were illustrated with figures by [[Leonhart Fuchs|Fuchs]], but in this last edition there were also 30 woodcuts by the botanist and physician Jacob Dalechamp.<ref name="autogenerated2"/><ref>Riddle, John M. 'The latin alphabetical Dioscorides', in Proceedings of XIIIth international congress of the history of science, Moscow, August 18–24, 1971, Nauka, Moscow 1974, sec 4</ref> It seems that the reason that he used his initials, H.B.P., and not his full name in the work; it could be that he practically transcribed commentaries of [[Andrea Mattioli|Mattioli]].<ref name="autogenerated2"/><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Riddle|first1=John M.|title=Dioscorides|journal=[[Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum]]|date=1980|volume=4|pages=82, 92|url=http://catalogustranslationum.org/PDFs/volume04/v04_dioscorides.pdf|access-date=28 August 2015}}</ref>{{clarify|date=February 2015|reason=Whose initials are HBP?}}

===Michael Servetus===

According to Spanish scholar González Echeverría<ref>[http://michaelservetusresearch.com/ENGLISH/works.html Michael Servetus Research] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113223851/http://www.michaelservetusresearch.com/ENGLISH/works.html |date=13 November 2012 }} website with graphical study of the medical works by Servetus</ref> in several communications in the [[International Society for the History of Medicine|ISHM]],<ref name="BarcelonaCongress">2011 September 9th, Francisco González Echeverría VI International Meeting for the History of Medicine,(S-11: Biographies in History of Medicine (I)), Barcelona. New Discoveries on the biography of Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus) & New discoverys on the work of Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus)</ref><ref name="KosCongress">1996 "Sesma's Dioscorides or Medical Matter: an unknown work of Michael Servetus (I)" and " Sesma's Dioscorides or Medical Matter: an unknown work of Michael Servetus (II)" González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. In : Book of Abstracts. 35th International Congress on the History of Medicine, 2nd-8th, September, 1996, Kos Island, Greece, communications nº: 6 y 7, p. 4.</ref><ref name="TunisCongress">1998 "The book of work of Michael Servetus for his Dioscorides and his Dispensarium"(Le livre de travail de Michel Servet pour ses Dioscorides et Dispensarium) and "The Dispensarium or Enquiridion, complementary of the Dioscorides of Michael Servetus" ( The Enquiridion, L’oeuvre Le Dispensarium ou Enquiridion complémentaire sur le Dioscorides de Michel Servet) González Echeverría, in : Book of summaries, 36th International Congress on the History of Medicine, Tunis (Livre des Résumés, 36 ème Congrès International d’ Histoire de la médicine, Tunis), 6th - 11th Septembre 1998, (two comunicacions), pp. 199 y 210.</ref> the [[John M. Riddle]] ''Anonymous B'' (De Materia Medica of 1543) would be [[Michael Servetus]], and that the ''Anonymous D'' (De Materia Medica of 1554 of [[Andrea Mattioli|Mattioli]] plus non-signed commentaries) is two commentarians, Servetus and [[Andrea Mattioli|Mattioi]], being the last one hired for editing the "''[[Lyon]]s printers' Tribute to Michel de Villeneuve''"<ref name="Tribute">Term coined by Gonzalez Echeverria</ref> edition.
Michael Servetus, using the name "Michel de Villeneuve", who already had his first death sentence from the [[University of Paris]], anonymously published a Dioscorides-De Materia Medica in 1543, printed by Jean & Francois Frellon in Lyon.<ref name="1543Dioscorides">1997 "Michael Servetus, editor of the Dioscorides", González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. Institute of Sijenienses Studies "Michael Servetus" ed, Villanueva de Sijena, Larrosa ed and "Ibercaja", Zaragoza.</ref>  It has 277 marginalia and 20 commentaries on a De Materia Medica of Jean Ruel.<ref name="1543Dioscorides" />  According to Gonzalez Echeverría, to be associated to an anonymous [[Pharmacopeia]] that "Michel de Villeneuve" published the same year, meant to be a single unit,<ref name="TunisCongress" /> which is typical when it comes to De Materia Medica-Pharmacopeia. This work had six later editions, in 1546 and 1547 by Jean Frellon, who considered Michael de Villeneuve "his friend and brother", another in 1547 by Thibaut Payen, etc.<ref name="1543Dioscorides"/><ref name="Love for truth">2011 "The love for truth. Life and work of Michael Servetus", (El amor a la verdad. Vida y obra de Miguel Servet.), printed by Navarro y Navarro, Zaragoza, collaboration with the Government of Navarra, Department of Institutional Relations and Education of the Government of Navarra, 607 pp, 64 of them illustrations.</ref>

[[File:1554Arnoullet.jpg|upright|thumb|One of the four covers (Arnoullet)  of the "''[[Lyon]]s printers' tribute edition to Michel de Villeneuve''"<ref name="Tribute" /> edition of the Materia Medica. By [[Servetus|Michel de Villeneuve]] & [[Pietro Andrea Mattioli]], printed by Balthazar Arnoullet in 1554, in Lyons.]]

There is another Materia Medica with commentaries<ref name="BarcelonaCongress" /> on a Ruel edition of 1537, printed by [[Simon de Colines]]. This work contains hundreds of manuscript marginaia, all along 420 out of 480 pages. The scholar Gonzalez Echeverria demonstrated in the [[International Society for the History of Medicine|ISHM]]<ref name="BarcelonaCongress" /> with a graphological, historical and linguistic study that this task was carried out by Michel de Villeneuve. It also demonstrated that this document was written by the same hand that wrote the famous<ref name="Love for truth" /> "Manuscript of Paris", a work also by Michel de Villeneuve, consisting of a draft for his Christianismo Restitutio. "The manuscript of the [[Complutense University of Madrid|Complutense]]" is not just a union of the ideas of the previous works by Michel de Villeneuve, Syropum Ratio, etc., but also of the later works, Enquiridion,<ref name="TunisCongress" /> De Materia Medica of 1543,<ref name="1543Dioscorides" /> sharing with this last many of its 20 big commentaries, for instance.<ref name="Love for truth" />

According to this theory, in 1554,<ref name="BarcelonaCongress" /> after the immolation of Michael de Villeneuve/Servetus, the editors and printers that had worked with him would have decided to make a new De Materia Medica as a tribute to their colleague and friend.<ref name="BarcelonaCongress" /> All the commentaries that could identify Michel de Villeneuve as the author disappeared,<ref name="Love for truth" /> but the rest are copied from his work of 1543. It is a very strange edition because there exist four different kinds of copies with different covers, one per editor: Jean Frellon, [[Guillaume Rouillé]], Antoine Vicent and Balthazar Arnoullet, who was also the printer of this unique edition, in [[Lyon]]s.<ref name="BarcelonaCongress" /> For developing a bigger work and to blur the mark of Michel de Villeneuve, they hired the expert on De Materia Medica, [[Pietro Andrea Mattioli]].<ref name="Love for truth" />

===Pietro Andrea Mattioli===
[[Pietro Andrea Mattioli]] was a renowned botanist and physician. He published a translation of De Materia Medica<ref name="Genaust">Genaust, Helmut (1976). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen</ref> into Italian in 1544 and ten years later published a work in Latin with all the plants of [[Dioscorides]] and 562 woodcut illustrations.<ref name="Obaldeston" /> It appeared in 1554, printed by Vicenzo Valgrisi, in [[Venice]]. Mattioli made a massive contribution to the original text of Pedani's Dioscorides.<ref name="Genaust" /> In some sections Mattioli added information that exceeded 15 times the length of the original text.  It resulted in a very big extension of the work, in beauty and information. It was later translated into German, French and [[Czech language|Bohemian]].<ref name="Obaldeston" />

Mattioli held a post in the Imperial Court as physician to [[Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria]],<ref name="Genaust" /> and the Emperor [[Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor]].<ref name="Obaldeston" /> This position granted him an immense influence. He frequently tested the effects of poisonous plants on prisoners in order to popularize his works.<ref name="autogenerated2"/> He also affirmed that Jean Ruel had declared some information in the lycopsis chapter of his Materia Medica. This is false, but still Mattioli used it as a reason for attacking Ruel.<ref name="Obaldeston" /> He did not tolerate either rivals nor corrections. The naturalists and physicians daring to disagree with him, or who had corrected him, were attacked. The list of important characters that were admonished, rebuked, or pursued by the [[Inquisition]] contains Wieland, [[House of Anguillara|Anguillara]], [[Conrad Gesner|Gesner]], [[Amato Lusitano|Lusitanus]] and others. This made editions of Matioli's De Materia Medica omnipresent throughout the continent, especially in northern Europe.<ref name="Genaust" />

===Andres Laguna===
In 1554 the physician [[Andres Laguna]] published his Annotations on [[Dioscorides]] of [[Anazarbus]]<ref name="Delapena">De la Pena, A (January 1963). "Two great physicians of the sixteenth century. (Andres LAGUNA)". The Journal of the International College of Surgeons</ref> printed by [[Guillaume Rouillé]] in Lyons. Laguna was the first to translate De Materia Medica into [[Spanish Language|Castilian]].<ref name="Delapena" /> His translation was made from one of the Latin editions of Jean Ruel. It was also based on classes Laguna took from Ruel as his pupil in Paris. Laguna points out some of his teacher's erroneous translations, and adds many commentaries, which make up more than half of the total work.

Laguna explored<ref name="Delapena" /> many [[Mediterranean]] areas and obtained results concerning many new herbs; he also added these prescriptions and commentaries to the recipes and teachings of Pedanius' Dioscorides. He also includes some animal and mineral products but only those related to simple medicines, that is, animal and [[mineral]] products that are medicine or are parts of a medical compound.<ref name="aljamia">2002 Rebeca Orihuela Salcho, Aljamia vol 14 University of Oviedo</ref> This was not an illustrated work. In 1555 he re-edited this work with [[woodcuts]].<ref name="Delapena" />
It was reprinted twenty-two times by the end of the 18th century; Laguna wrote very well, with explanations and practical commentaries.<ref name="aljamia" /> He refers to anecdotes, adds commentaries on the plants, provides their synonyms in different languages, and explains their uses in the 16th century. These qualities and the number of woodcuts made this work very popular and appreciated in medicine far beyond the 16th century. He had problems with Mattioli for using some of his commentaries without mentioning him.<ref name="aljamia" />

Laguna had problems with the [[Inquisition]], just like [[Servetus|Michel de Villeneuve]], for both were [[jewish]]-[[converso]],<ref>Immanuel Jakobovits, Jewish Medical Ethics: A Comparative and Historical Study of the Jewish Religious Attitude to Medicine and its Practice, 2nd ex. ed. (w:st="on"New York: Bloch, 1975; orig. 1959)</ref> a fact that could have made them limit their commentaries to avoid risks. Nevertheless, he was the physician of [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]] and the [[Pope Julius III]],<ref name="Delapena" /> and that helped to establish his work as the last word in Materia Medica, and as the basis of Spanish botany.<ref>Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. János M. Bak and Paul A. Hollingsworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1997</ref>

===Valerius Cordus===
The physician [[Valerius Cordus]], son of the famous botanist Euricius Cordus, went through many woods and mountains discovering hundreds of new herbs.<ref>DURLING, Richard J.-A catalogue of Sixteenth Century Printed Books in the National Library of medicine., Bethesda, MD, US Dept. of Health, NLM, 16thc.1967.</ref> He gave lectures on Dioscorides at the [[University of Wittenberg]], which experts from the university attended. Cordus had no intention of publishing his work. Five years after his death, a Materia Medica with commentaries was published.<ref>Greene, Edward Lee, Landmarks of Botanical Science</ref> It contained the index of the ''Botanologicon'', the outstanding work of his father Euricius, who developed a scientific classification of the plants. The following pages are on [[Conrad Gesner|Gesner]]'s Nomenclature,<ref>Hans H. Wellisch Conrad Gessner: A Bio-bibliography, 2nd revised and enlarged edition. Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Company, 1984</ref>  relating the different synonyms used for referring to the same plants of the Dioscorides work.

The abstracts of the lectures of Valerius Cordus go from page 449 to 553 as commentaries. This section consisted of a very refined explanation of Dioscorides' teachings with more specifics on the variety of plants<ref>Nissen, Claus. Herbals of five centuries, L’Art Ancien, Zurich, Robert Wolfe, Munich and Weiss-Hesse, Olten, 1958</ref> and habitats, and corrections of errors. Cordus refers to both his and his father's observations. [[Eucharius Rösslin]]'s herbal<ref>Theodor Husemann (1876) (in German). "Cordus, Valerius". In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie</ref> illustrations are prominent in this work, followed by 200 of [[Leonhart Fuchs|Fuchs]]. This work and the model of botanical description and, many consider it the boldest innovation that was made by any botanist of the 16th century.<ref>Nissen, Claus. Die botanische buchillustration, ihre geschichte und bibliographie, A Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 2 vols, 1951, Supplement, 1966.</ref>

===Martin Mathee===

The French physician Martin Mathee published in 1553 the French translation of De Materia Medica, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet, in Lyons. This granted much more access for the students of medicine to the teachings.<ref name="autogenerated2"/>

The Greek version was reprinted in 1518, 1523 and 1529, and reprinted in 1518, 1523 and 1529. Between 1555 and 1752 there were at least 12 Spanish editions; and as many in Italian from 1542. French editions appeared from 1553; and German editions from 1546.<ref name="Obaldeston" />

=="Materia non medica"==
The ancient phrase survives in modified form in the ''[[British Medical Journal]]''{{'}}s long-established "Materia Non Medica" column, the title indicating non-medical material that doctors wished to report from their travels and other experiences. For example, in June 1977, the journal contained "Materia Non Medica" reports on an exhibition at the [[Whitechapel Art Gallery]] by a London physician, the making of matches by hand in an Indian village by a [[missionary]] general practitioner, and a cruise to Jamaica by a [[University of the West Indies]] lecturer in medicine.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Materia Non Medica |journal=BMJ |volume=1 |issue=6077 |date=25 June 1977 |pages=1657  |doi=10.1136/bmj.1.6077.1657|s2cid=220196463 }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Alterative]]
* [[Herbal]]
* [[Homeopathic Materia Medica]]
* [[Physic garden]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20121113223851/http://www.michaelservetusresearch.com/ENGLISH/works.html Michael Servetus Research] – website with graphical study on the two Materia Medica, and the Manuscript of the Complutense by Servetus
* Complete editions of several [http://www.materiamedica.info/en/free-materia-medica-books.php Materia Medica of William Boericke, B. Mure, James Tyler Kent, John Henry Clarke, Henry C. Allen, Cyrus Maxwell Boger, Adolf zur Lippe]
*[https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.CRMS123 Guide to Materia Medica circa 1830] at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center]

[[Category:History of pharmacy]]
[[Category:Pharmacopoeias]]
[[Category:Herbals]]
[[Category:Pharmacology literature]]