410 OLEACE^. 



during their journey to the Holy Land, has been used to designate other 

 substances of distinct nature and origin. Of these, the best known and 

 most important is the saccharine exudation of Fraxinus Ornus L,, 

 which constitutes the Manna of European medicine. 



It appears evident^ that previous to the loth century, the manna 

 in Europe was imported from the East and was not that of the ash. 

 Raffaele MafFei, called also Volaterranus, a writer who flourished in the 

 second half of the loth century, states that manna began to be gathered 

 in Calabria in his time, but that it was inferior to the oriental." At 

 this period the manna collected was that which exuded spontaneously 

 from the leaves of the tree, and was termed Manna difoglia or Manna 

 difronda: that which flowed from the stem bore the name of Manna 

 di corpo and was less esteemed. All such manna was very dear. 



About the middle of the 16th century, the plan of making incisions 

 in the trunk and branches was resorted to, and although it was strenu- 

 ously opposed even by legislative enactment, the more copious supplies 

 which it enabled the collectors to obtain led it to being generally 

 adopted. The R-icettario Fiorentino of the year 1573^ states that 

 the manna " fatta con arte," i.e. obtained by incisions, came from 

 Cosenza in Calabria and dift'ered not little from Syrian " manna 

 mastichina." ^ 



Manna difoglia became in fact utterly unknown, so that Cii'illo 

 of Naples, writing in 1770, expresses doubt whether it ever had any 

 existence.^ 



With regard to the history of manna-production in Sicily, there is 

 this curious fact, that near Cefalu there exists an eminence in the 

 Madonia range, called Gebelman or Gibelnianna, which in Arabic 

 signifies manna-mountain. This name is not of modern origin, but is 

 found in a diploma of the year 1082, concerning the foundation of the 

 bishopric of Messina ; and it has been held to indicate that manna was 

 there collected during the Saracenic occupation of Sicily, a.d. 827 to 

 1070. We have not been successful in finding any evidence whether 

 this supposition is w^ell founded. On the other hand, it is remark- 

 able that no writer, so far as we know, mentions manna as a production 

 of Sicily, before Paolo Boccone of Palermo, who, after naming many 

 localities for the drug in continental Italy, states that it is also obtained 

 in Sicily.® 



Manna was also produced until recently in the Tuscan Maremma, 

 but neither from that locality, nor from the States of the Church, where 

 it was collected in the time of Boccone, is any supply now brought into 

 commerce, though'the name of Tolfa, a town near Civita Vecchia, is still 

 used to designate an inferior sort of the drug. 



The collection of manna in Calabria, which was imported up to the 

 end of last century, has now almost entirely ceased.^ 



^ Hanbury, Historical Notes on Manna, was that of Alhagi, which we shall mention 



Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 326; or Science further on, p. 414. 



Papers, 355. ^ Phil. Trans. Ix. (1771) 233. 



- Commentarii Urhani, Paris, 1515. lib. * Museo di Fisica, Venet. 1697. Obs. 



38. f. 413. xiv.-xv. 



^ P. 46; we have not seen the edition of " Hanbury in Giornale Botanico Italiano, 



1498. Ottobre 1872. 267; Pharm. Journ. Nov. 30. 



■• Mastichina alludes probably to the 1872. 421 ; Science Papers, 365. 

 granular form of that manna— perhaps it 



