The 1st Edition, published in 1899 under the title Merck's Manual of the Materia Medica, was a 192-page book based on the United States Pharmacopoeia. Almost all of the drugs listed have been replaced by more effective remedies, but some, such as atropine, digitalis, chloral hydrate, codeine, and quinidine, are still used today. The use of drugs that we recognize mostly as poisons today, such as arsenic and strychnine, was surprisingly common. However, anyone reading the current edition of The Merck Manual would recognize that we still use a number of poisons, especially in treating cancer. These tendencies exist in medical therapy today.
Memory is treacherous.
It is particularly so with those who have much to do and more to think of. When the best remedy is wanted, to meet indications in cases that are a little out of the usual run, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to recall the whole array of available remedies so as to pick out the best. . . . But a mere reminder is all he needs, to make him at once master of the situation and enable him to prescribe exactly what his judgement tells him is needed for the occasion. The intent of The Manual to provide clinically relevant material to meet the needs of practicing physicians has remained the same to this day. In the 2nd Edition, brief definitions were added under the name of each condition, and aspirin was mentioned for the first time, only 2 years after its introduction by Bayer.