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Materia medica is a Latin term for any material or substance used in the composition of curative agents in medicine.

The use of materia medica was historically based upon the idea that medicines possess magical curative powers — the original mechanism of action for all materia medica was magic. Folk healers among the peasantry believed in the law of signatures to identify which herbs would be effective against which diseases.

By a process of trial and error, folk healers learned which herbs worked and which herbs did not work. Materia medica eventually developed into the science of pharmacology.

The term materia medica is still used in homeopathy. Minute dosages of materia medica are used in its lower potency medicines, and in herbal therapy. Homeopathy still considers there to be an inverse relationship between the presence of physical substance and the strength or action of the remedy. The higher potencies are those which have been potentised beyond the last molecule and are believed to act and effect a cure on a metaphysical level.

From the earliest days of organized pharmaceutical and medical knowledge, all of the information pertaining to drugs and their usage was designated "materia medica " (meaning, medical matter).

The most famous commentary on drugs, written by Greek pharmaco-botanist Dioscorides in the first century A.D., is titled de materia medica libri cinque (concerning medical matter in five volumes).

It covered about 600 plant drugs plus anumber of animal and mineral products.

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