De Materia Medica

Pedanius Dioscorides's De Materia Medica is a primary source of enormous historical importance, a first century Greek physician's pharmacological compendium describing the medicinal, and often ritual or magical, properties ancient Mediterranean cultures attributed to plants, minerals and animal products. Its authority for what ancient people believed about these substances is direct and foundational, since it is the actual ancient text rather than a later description of it, and it remained the standard Western pharmacological reference for over a millennium. As an ancient medical text, its claims about a substance's actual physiological effects reflect first century medical theory rather than modern pharmacology, so it should be read as authoritative evidence of ancient belief and practice, not as a validated modern account of any described substance's real effects.