HISTORICAL NOTES ON MANNA. 361 



not pass unnoticed, for in the year 1562 Marino Spinelli, being iee&. 

 protomedico of the kingdom of Naples, set about inquiring as to 

 the article sold by the druggists as manna : and as he doubtless 

 found it no longer corresponded with that of former days, he 

 declared, in concert with other learned physicians, that it was 

 by no means good ; and further to enforce his opinion, he pro- 

 cured the issuing of a public edict, prohibiting the druggists 

 under a severe penalty from using any other manna than that of 

 the leaf. This law proved very injurious to the Calabrians ; it 

 was felt also to be both severe and unjust by many of the physi- 

 cians one of whom, Aunibal Briganti, took up the question in a Annibal 

 philosophical spirit, made many visits to the manna-districts, and 

 investigated the differences alleged to exist between one sort of 

 exudation and another. This resulted in the discovery that 

 manna, whether spontaneously yielded by the leaves or stem, or 

 obtained from the latter by aid of incisions, is essentially the 

 same substance and possesses like virtues. These observations 

 were recorded by Briganti in a long discourse written in Latin, 

 for which, I am sorry to say, he has had very little credit ; for 

 not wholly trusting his own judgment on a subject so grave 

 and controversial, he sent his MS. from Chieti, where he lived, 

 to another learned man, Donatus Antonius ab Altomari of 

 Naples, who so entirely approved of it that he immediately pub- 

 lished the whole of it in his own name I 1 Under the assumed Literary ap- 

 propriation, 

 authorship of Altomari we have then this essay as a quarto 



pamphlet of forty-six pages, printed at Venice in 1562, and 

 entitled, De Mannce differentiis ac viribus deque eas diynoscendi 

 via ac ratione ; and as if to give the work greater weight, it is 

 in the form of an epistle- addressed to Hieronimus Albertinus, 

 Neapolitan prime minister of Philip II., a monarch whose 

 connection with the English crown and Spanish Armada has 

 caused his name to be well remembered in our annals. 



The custom of promoting the exudation of manna by wounding 



Basle in 1574, the practice of making incisions in the bark of the tree is dis- 

 tinctly alluded to as being followed in Apulia and Calabria "hdc cetate." 



1 " Senza pure un minima segno di gratitudine." The account of this 

 shameless piracy is related with much moderation by Briganti himself in his 

 Italian edition of Garcia D'Orta, published at Venice in 1582 (p. 50). 



