330 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
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 published the whole of it in his 
own name! 1 Under the assumed authorship of Altomari, we have then this 
essay as a quarto pamphlet of 46 pages, printed at Venice in 1562 and entitled 
I)e Manna? differentiis ac viribus deque eas dignoscendi via ac ratione : and as if 
to give the work greater weight, it is in the form of an epistle addressed to 
Uieronimus Albertinus, Neapolitan prime minister of Philip II., a monarch 
whose connection with the English crown and the Spanish Armada has caused 
his name to be well remembered in our annals. 
The custom of promoting the exudation of manna by wounding the stem and 
branches of the trees, must have occasioned a great increase in the production 
of the drug, a proof of which we have in the.statement of Fiore (1691) that the 
sole district of Campana and Bocchiglioro affords annually 30,000 lb. with great 
profit to the gatherers and 1100 ducats of excise to the government. 2 Of the 
period when the traffic in manna commenced in Sicily, I have no information. 
Paolo Boccone of Palermo mentions in his Museo di Fisica e di Esperienzie 
which appeared in 1697, several localities in Italy whence manna is obtained, 
adding that manna forzata (that from incisions being thus called) is also pro¬ 
duced in Sicily. 3 
In conclusion let me recapitulate the points in the history of manna, upon 
which I have endeavoured to throw light: 
1. That the manna known in Europe in very early times was probably 
all of Oriental origin. 
2. That manna of the ash ( Fraxinus Ornus L.) began to be collected in 
Calabria in the first half of the fifteenth century. 
3. That the practice of making incisions in the tree iu order to promote 
the exudation was not commenced until about the middle of the sixteenth 
century, previous to which period, the only manna obtained was that which 
exuded spontaneously. 
4. That although the existence in Sicily of a mountain called by the 
Arabic name Gibilnianna, would seem to indicate that manna was collected 
during the period of Mussulman rule in that island (a.d. 827 to a.d. 1070), 
evidence has not been produced to prove the fact:—but that on the con¬ 
trary, it appears that manna was gathered in Calabria long anterior to its 
collection in Sicily. 
Professor Bentley said the subject of the able paper which they had just 
listened to scarcely admitted of discussion, and Mr. Ilanbury had, as usual, 
pretty well exhausted his theme. He quite approved of the course he had 
adopted in not attempting to account in any natural way for the manna of the 
Israelites, though no doubt he was aware of the paper by Dr. O’Rourke, which 
1 <k Serna pure un minimo 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). 
2 Della Calabria illustrata, Nap. 1691-1743, fol. p. 253. 
3 Obs. xiv.-xv. 
