In the late 18th century, modern materia medica began to take new forms. It began to lead a life independent of the traditional pharmacopeas. The market for books describing pharmaceutical substances, their preparations and their use, diversified. Physicians needed handy instructions for effective prescriptions; and they also valued the works of those colleagues who revealed their most valued secret recepees towards the end of their life. The tradition of pharmacopeas authored by physicians was continued, especially if the authors were town physicians or aspired such a position.
From the beginning of the 19th century, works titled 'materia medica' (Arzneimittellehre) were also published to promote a specific therapeutic orientation, e.g. materia medica for physicians oriented towards natural philosophy. During the same time period, the knowledge about medicinal substances began to emancipate itself from natural history, and a number of intersections between experimental physiology, experimental pathology, and toxicology were created. In this period, the sub-discipline of pharmacology took form. Textbooks informing physicians about how and why to use which pharmaceutical substance then started to bear the word “pharmacology” in their titles.
While traditional materia medica books continued to rely on the traditional system of the three realms (mineral, vegetable and animal substances) and in addition often on the distinction between simplicia and composita (i.e. simple and composite remedies), other authors referred to new chemical and therapeutical concepts and started out to inscribe the new order of chemistry or novel concepts of the living body into their systems. From the middle of the 19th century onwards, experimental accounts of pharmacology began to affect the writing of textbooks, and a new devide arose between textbooks that mereley described pharmaceutical substances, and those that centred around the experimentally produced pharmacological effects.
One intriguing finding is that German materia medica heavily relied on the works written by other European authors - especially from England and Scotland. I will also discuss why the classification of medicinal substances was often similar to systems of toxicology.