Economic Botany Collections

Box of medical jars from the Maton Collection

This materia medica collection predates the formation of the Pharmaceutical Society. Collections like this one, would have contained samples of crude drugs only. It was from these plant and animal parts that medicines would have been prepared. Sometimes it was the pure plant that was used, but often they would have been combined in a mixture. Before the process of isolation of a curative chemical within a crude drug was discovered, the most popular type of medicine would have been a mixture of various substances found in a collection of materia medica. Almost 40 percent of prescriptions were written for mixtures. Pills, powders and ointments made from these substances were also used.

Physicians like Maton would have been educated in materia medica. These medicines would also have been available at an apothecary or Chemist and Druggist. At the end of the 19th century the dispute between the physicians and pharmacists was ongoing. The boundaries between the two fields’ practices were constantly being fought over in the courts.

Back to Maton Collection

Back to Royal Pharmaceutical Society Collection at Kew