Who is Merck?
Merck is in fact no one person, but the publishing company which edits the book: Merck Research Laboratories, based in New Jersey, USA. Currently it runs as a non-profit agency; its only goal to provide an up-to-date service to the scientific community and the public. It is important to note that Merck Research Laboratories is in no way associated with another company with a similar name, Merck Sharp and Dohme, that is also, rather confusingly, known as Merck. However, the latter is a very large, profit-making pharmaceutical company, unlike the publishers of The Manual. History of The Manual The initial title of the First Edition (1899) was Merck’s Manual of the Materia Medica. This was a 192-page booklet based on the US Pharmacopoeia1, which had three parts. The first section, called Materia Medica was an alphabetically organised list of every medicine of any use at the time. The second section, called Therapeutic Indications, was an alphabetical organisation of all symptoms, signs, d
