Magdaleon. Originally a mass or paste such as crumb of bread (Greek, magdalia), or it may have been used for pill masses made up with crumb of bread. The term became limited to plasters in cylindrical form.
Magistery. A word much in favour with the alchemists and old pharmacists. It had not a very definite meaning, but was understood to be a substance so converted as to present the virtues of the material from which it had been made in their most effective form. Boyle mentions that Paracelsus uses the word to signify many different things, and Boyle himself has not a clear idea of what he understands by it, for, he says, “the best notion I know of it is that it is a preparation whereby there is not an analysis made of the body assigned, nor an extraction of this or that principle, but the whole or very near the whole body, by the help of some additament, greater or less, is turned into a body of another kind.” Boerhaave, however, takes the pretensions of the makers of magisteries to be that they change a body into another form, as, for instance, solid gold into liquid, without any addition. According to Littré, precipitates generally were considered to possess the properties of the bodies from which they were obtained, and thus became magisteries. The magistery of bismuth is the one which has survived the longest with us. Resin of jalap was also regarded as a magistery.
Magma was the residuum left in the press after pressing out the menstruum. It was also used to describe other substances of a soft consistence.
Magnes Arsenicalis was a compound of sulphur, arsenic, and antimony, which, either in the form of powder or made into a plaster, was applied to syphilitic sores to draw out the virus. Angelo Sala was the inventor of the plaster.
Malagmata were substances applied to the skin to soften it, such as poultices.
Malaxation was the process of making a pill mass or a plaster soft enough to be worked.
Manica Hypocratis (Sleeve of Hippocrates) was a long linen bag used to filter pharmaceutical preparations.
Manipulus, a handful, often prescribed as an approximate measure of the quantity of herbs or flowers to be used in a pharmaceutical process.
Manus Christi was the name of a tablet made of sugar and flavoured with rose into which some prepared pearl entered.
Manus Dei was the name of an old plaster containing myrrh, frankincense, ammoniac, and galbanum.