Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Historical notes on manna / by Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![rReprinted from the Pharmaceutical Journal for December, 1869, with some L Additions and Corrections.'] Whatever was the true nature of the substance provided for the suste- nance of the ancient Israelites and termed by them Manna, that name has in subsequent ages been used to designate certaiu saccharine exudations produced in hot countries upon the stems, branches or leaves of trees, shrubs, or her- baceous plants, belonging to various families. Thus in the peninsula of Sinai, a sweet substance called manna is exuded by a species of tamarisk ; in Persia, a manna is produced by a small, thorny, leguminous plant, known to botanists as Alhagi Maurorian; and in Kurdistan, an evergreen-oak affords an analogous product. These substances have from a remote period beeu employed as food or medicine, and they are still found, though in small quantities, in the bazaars of the East. The Cedar of Lebanon, the Larch, a Cistus, and certain Australian species of Eucalyptus likewise yield at certain seasons, saccharine exudations in more or less abundance ; and those derived from the cedar and larch have occa- sionally been collected for use. The manna of modern times is well known to have a very different origin, being a product obtained in considerable abundance from the stems and branches of a species of ash, cultivated in Calabria and Sicily. With this manna, Europe is wholly supplied, and it likewise finds its way into the markets of the East. During some conversation last summer with my friend Dr. Fliickiger of Bern, he drew my attention to this curious fact,—that in the early history of Sicily, no mention is made of manna as a production of the island. This in- duced me to look around for further information, the result of which has been the collection of a few notes on the history of this drug, which seem of sufficient interest to be presented to the Pharmaceutical Society. In the first place, I must thank Colonel Yule, to whom I wrote thinking that his familiarity with historical research, and actual residence at Palermo, might enable him to impart some hints for my guidance. But he has been good enough to render me still greater service iu furnishing extracts from several authors whose works I might otherwise have overlooked. With regard to manna which has fallen from the atmosphere, or as it is termed Meteoric Manna, the grand example is that described in the book of Exodus. Of this it may be safely affirmed, that accepting the Mosaic account as the sim- ple narrative of a real event, no phenomenon is known which is at all adequate to explain it. But there are other examples of meteoric manna which come fairly within the range of natural phenomena, and which it would be interesting to consider, did space permit. I may observe that the notion that manna is not the juice of a plant, but that it is of the nature of dew and falls from the sky, is very ancient, and still lingers in the East. In the case of the manna-ash, it was dis- proved by the Franciscan monks Angelus Palca and Bartliolomaeus ab Urbe HISTORICAL NOTES ON M > .V -yt '](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22347148_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
