»Of course I still endeavor to this day to add natural materials of interest that come in for screening […] to the collection.«
Paul Georg Wolff, Annual Report, Control Laboratory, 1931

Ancient medicine used natural materials as a basis for remedies, dietary or religious observances. A first-century Greek scholar, Dioscorides, explained the use of these materials in his book »De materia medica«. With descriptions of some 1,000 medicines and 4740 applications, it became the reference work of the day for the use of pharmaceutical materials.

At the beginning of the early modern period, »European expansion« saw explorers and scientists travel to remote or previously undiscovered parts of the world in search of »natural materials«. Numerous discoveries are made, bringing new natural medicines to light. Scientific research progress in chemistry as in other areas enable active ingredients to be investigated, isolated and, finally, harvested efficiently.

The company begins accumulating extensive collections in the mid-19th century. Many natural substances are sourced from agents and bioprospectors on every continent, sorted and cataloged. Indigenous lore in the regions of origin on the use of a plant component, a mineral substance or an animal is also handed down. The aim is to advance and systematize knowledge, but also to access new sources of raw materials from which active substances can be harvested, for instance by extraction. Cocoa beans from different parts of the world are compared in Darmstadt as regards their suitability.

Semi- or indeed full synthesis of these substances surges in importance from the 19th century onward, but Wolff’s »Control Laboratory« journal entry of December 1931 reports that an on-site natural material collection set up primarily for alkaloid research in 1903 has grown to more than 2,000 items. Collections of this kind continue to be essential in training pharmacists. Identifying natural medicines evolves into a major part of the discipline known as Pharmaceutical Biology.

Karl Merck donates an impressive collection to the German Pharmacy Museum in Heidelberg in 1963, containing rare dried natural medicines in their original containers: leather-lined boxes, woven mats and clay jars for packaging, lumps of opium in leather cloths, Chinese rhubarb in a zinc box, potency wood from Brazil, gentian root from Central Europe, great logs of Quassia wood, Faience pottery jars used to ship Peruvian balsam, a container for curare, and more. Part of the collection has been returned and can again be viewed at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, today.

To mark the opening of new exhibition rooms for historical medicinal herbs in the German Pharmacy Museum, Heidelberg, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Karl Merck (pictured left), presents curator Werner Luckenbach with an extensive collection on October 20, 1963. Smaller exhibits are stored at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

Biodiversity is very high in the tropics and subtropics. Collecting plant-based matter from these regions holds promise for active ingredient discovery. In the 19th century, the company explores Peru for new plants and consults the indigenous population for their knowledge.

The company starts selling medicinal plant collections for educational purposes in the 1920s. Those »green boxes«– sets of 240 herbal remedies safely packed in three layers of glass tubes – sold in the 1960s for use in pharmacy training are immensely popular and still to be found in many pharmacies and universities today.