De Materia Medica, AD 70 – Early examples of the art of preparing and dispensing medicines

One of antiquity’s most important pharmacology books

For a thousand years, the history of pharmacy, the art of preparing and dispensing medicinal drugs, was identical to the history of pharmacognosy (the study of drugs), which involves examining medicines derived from natural sources. In the first century AD, army surgeon Pedanius Dioscorides began a remarkable quest to combine all known medical information about plants and other natural substances in a work that would be read and translated for 1,500 years. The Arabs preserved and copied the work, initially a foundation of Islamic pharmacology, before it was eventually recopied in Latin.

Dioscorides, a Greek physician born in what is now Turkey who worked in Rome during Nero’s reign, traveled extensively and produced flawless illustrations in his five-volume De Materia Medica ("On Medical Matters," about AD 70). His descriptions were practical, providing dosages and preparation recipes as well as instructions for administration to patients. Besides describing the uses of opium for pain, he also discussed cannabis (marijuana), mint, blueberries and other plants. His treatments concerned ulcers, roundworms, antidotes to poisons and much more.

Chemist John Mann writes: "The greatest triumph and innovation of Dioscorides’s herbal was arranging plants by pharmacological properties rather than botanical families. Many plant extracts were undoubtedly effective, such as henbane and mandrake, containing tropane alkaloids (naturally occurring nitrogen-containing organic molecules) used for pain relief. Hemlock is less convincing, however, because of the belief that "it prevents the breasts of virgins from growing." Other superstitions included malaria being treated with bedbugs."

Remember that in modern times, doctors often prescribe medicines related to compounds found in plants. Aspirin, for example, has an active ingredient found in willow bark and treats fever, pain and inflammation. Derived from a common garden flower, digitalis (foxglove) can control heart rate.

Description of the article image: A page from an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica (1224).

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Pedanius Dioscorides (40–90 BC)

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