Historical notes on manna / by Daniel Hanbury.

  • Daniel Hanbury
Date:
[1869]
Catalogue details

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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    the Compendium Aromatariorum of Saladinus, printed at Bologna in 1488. Sala- dinus was physician to one of the Princes of Tarentum in Calabria: neither the date of his birth nor that of bis death is known, but it would appear that he was living between a.d. 1442 and 1458; for he states that during his time, the King of Arragon punished his druggist at Naples by a fine of 9000 ducats and degradation from office, because the king’s physicians having prescribed white coral as an ingredient of a cordial electuary, the druggist not possessing it, substituted red coral. This incident affords a clue to the age of Saladinus, for it was Alphouso V., King of Arragon who laid siege to Naples, captured it in 1442, and died in 1458. The work of Saladinus to which I have alluded, is a sort of handbook for the aromatarius or druggist, and is remarkable for much practical good sense. Besides numerous formulas and descriptive notices of drugs, it contains a calendar enumerating the herbs, flowers, seeds, roots and gums to be collected in each month :—and in terminating the list for May, there occurs the following pas- sage : “ Collige etia in isto mese mana ta in oriete qm in Calabria quia tunc ros ille “ preciosius de celo cadit.” Contemporary with Saladinus lived Giovanni Gioviano Pontano (a.d. 1426- 1503), a celebrated historian, statesman, philosopher and poet. Among his numerous writings is a work entitled Liber Meteororum, in which there is a poem headed De Pruind, et Ilore, et Manna; this effusion notices in very cir- cumstantial terms the collection of manna by the peasants on the banks of the Crati in Calabria, describing the production of the drug in language which I may render thus, subjoining the original passage in a foot-note :* * * * There in the middle of summer under a burning sun, while heat pre- vails, and the cloven earth gapes,—when no breeze is stirring and the humid air is still, it [the manna] gradually exudes and, condensed as a viscid fluid, runs into drops and thickens on the thirsty leaves,—and further hardened by successive suns, it acquires the appearance of wax and the taste of honey. Such as the bees obtain by their instinctive art and mutual aid, this, nature produces for the medicinal use of mankind. In the second half of the fifteenth century flourished Raffaele Maffei, called also Volaterranus, a learned and voluminous writer, who among other works hits left one entitled Commentarii Urbani, in which we find a sentence in the following words1 2 3: “ Manna nostra aetate coepit in Calabria provenire: licet orientali in- “ ferior.” 1 Quinetiam Calabris in saltibus, ac per opacum Labitur ingenti Crathis, qua coerulus alveo, Quaque etiam Syriis sylvse convallibus horrent Felices sylvaj, quarum de fronde liquescunt Diviui roris latices, quos sedula passim Turba legit, gratum auxilium languentibus agris. Illic sestate in media, sub sole furenti Dum regnat calor et terras fmduutur liiantes * * * * * Cum null® spirant aurue, et silet kumidus acr Contrahitur paulatim, et lento kumoro coactus In guttas abit, et foliis sitientibus kaerens Lenteseit, rursumque diurno a sole recoctus Iuduit et speciem cerse, mellisque saporem. Quodque et apes prsestaut arte, ingenitoque favore Hoc medicos natura liominum producit in usus. Fontani Opera, Venet. 1513, Lib. Meteor, p. 113. 3 Volaterranus (Iiapk.) Comment. Urban., Paris, 1516, fol., lib. 38. f. 413. I have not been able to consult an earlier edition of his works published, it is said, at Home in 1500.