Materia medica, as used in Sen’s work, is an historically used term for the field of pharmacology or the branch of science concerned with the sources, nature, properties, and preparation of drugs. Around the year 77 CE, a Roman physician, Dioscorides, wrote De Materia Medica, a work covering five books, describing around 600 dplants and 1,000 simple drugs. These drugs ranged from opium as a sleeping draft to mercury to milk and honey. De Materia Medica describes many drugs used in medical practice up until medicine.
When Haimabati Sen was in medical school at Campbell Medical School, she was instructed in “anatomy, materia medica and dispensing” (168). Materia medica here refers to the study of the nature of drugs, their uses, and their preparation. Since her medical education occurred from 1891 to 1894, the understanding of medicine had progressed beyond De Materia Medica, but the principles of the discipline remained the same, and many of the drugs used were identical.
SOURCES
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/materia%20medica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/De-materia-medica
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pedanius-Dioscorides
https://carrington.edu/blog/historical-overview-of-pharmacology/