Am  Joint.  Pharm.  ) 
Feb.  1, 1873.  J 
Oalahrian  Manna. 
Here  I  may  remind  you  of  an  investigation  into  the  history  of 
manna  which  I  made  in  1869,*  and  that  one  conclusion  to  which  it 
led  was  this, — that  manna  was  collected  in  Calabria  for  hundreds  of 
years  prior  to  it  being  a  commercial  product  of  Sicily,  and  that  the 
earliest  accounts  of  manna-gathering  in  the  latter  country,  only  date 
from  the  second  half  of  the  17th  century. 
It  will  be  well  now  to  consider  some  remarks  that  have  been  made 
by  travellers  regarding  manna  as  an  object  of  industry  in  Calabria, 
Though  they  are  only  passing  allusions,  they  suffice  to  show  that  this 
drug  was  at  least  a  well-recognized  production  of  the  country  in  ques- 
tion. 
Baron  Eiedesel,  a  German  nobleman  who  made  an  interesting  jour- 
ney through  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy  about  a  century  ago,  and 
whose  travels  have  been  published  both  in  German  and  English,f 
travelled  from  Cotrone  to  Coriati,  small  towns  on  the  eastern  coast 
of  Calabria.  Of  the  latter  he  remarks,  that  "  it  is  a  bishopric  of 
Calabria,  .  .  .  round  which  they  collect  the  best  manna  and  in 
the  greatest  quantity.  The  owners  of  the  manna-trees  are  obliged  to 
sell  their  manna  to  the  king  for  a  fixed  price  :  the  better  sort,  or  what 
is  commonly  called  in  cannole,  for  2  carlini  [8^.],  and  the  worse,  or 
infrasca,  for  8  grani[Z\d.~]  the  pound.  These  revenues  are  farmed 
for  32,000  ducats  [£5533]  per  annum.  The  greatest  quantity  is  col- 
lected about  Cariati  and  Strongoli." 
About  20  miles  west  of  Cariati,  is  the  small  town  of  Corigliano, 
where,  says  the  Baron,  they  also  collect  "  vast  quantities  of  manna" 
Half  a  century  after  this  traveller,  an  Englishman,  the  Hon.  Rich- 
ard Keppel  Craven,  made  a  journey  through  Calabria,  visiting  among 
other  places  Cariati,  the  vicinity  of  which  was  at  that  period  still  fa- 
mous for  manna.  The  following  is  from  his  published  journal  :J — 
"  The  mountains  near  Cariati  abound  with  game,  and  the  forests, 
which  richly  clothe  their  summits,  furnish  quantities  of  that  species 
of  ash  which  produces  the  manna,  a  considerable  branch  of  commerce 
in  this  province,  and  more  particularly  esteemed  from  this  district." 
The  foregoing  notices,  scanty  as  they  are,  are  yet  of  interest,  as 
*  Historical  Notes  on  Manna. — Pharm.  Journ.,  xi  (1870),  326. 
t  Travels  through  Sicily  and  that  part  of  Italy  formerly  called  Magna  Grcecia, 
translated  from  the  German  by  J.  R.  Forster,  F.  R.  S.,  London,  1773. 
%  Tour  through  the  Southern  Provinces  of  the  Kingdom  of  Naples,  London,. 
1821. 
