Spec. Plant Willd. iv. 1102. Cl. 23. Ord. 2. Polygamia Dioecia. Nat. ord. Oleaceae. G. 1903. Hermaph. Calyx 0, or four-parted. Corolla, 0, or four-parted. Stamens two. Pistil one. Capsule one-seeded, lanceolate. Female. Pistil one, lanceolate. Species 15. F. Ornus1 (Ornus Furopea). Flowering Ash. Med.

Pot. 3d. edit. p. 589. Sibthorp, Flora Graeca, t. 4. Officinal. Manna, Lond. Dub. Edin. Manna.

Syn. Manne(F.), Mannaesche ( G.), Manna (Russian), Manna ( I.), Mana (S), Turenjeebeen (Arab.), Shirkhisht (H.), Disu Bacdak (Turkish).

This tree is a native of the south of Europe, growing abundantly in Calabria, Apulia, Sicily, on Mount Parnassus, and the loftier mountains of Greece; and is cultivated in England as an ornamental tree; flowering in May and June. It seldom exceeds twenty feet in height, is very branching, and has a smooth grey bark. The leaves are deciduous, pe-tiolate, opposite, and pinnate; composed of two or three pairs of leaflets, with a terminal one: the leaflets are one inch and a half long and three fourths of an inch broad, acuminate, serrated, smooth, and of a deep bright green colour. The footstalks vary in length, and are channelled with stipules; the gems are villous. The flowers grow in close panicles, and at the extremities of the young shoots. They are pedicellated, opposite, and corollated. The segments of the calyx are ovate, pointed, and nearly equal: the petals oblong and linear, obtuse, entire, attenuated at the base, spreading, twice the length of the calyx, and of a white colour. The filaments are two, spreading, white, smooth, and bearing yellow incumbent anthers. The germen is small, oval, and smooth, with a short straight style, crowned with a notched stigma.

The capsules droop, are lanceolate, notched, compressed, and bilocular at the base; with one cell generally abortive, while the other contains a cylindrical ferruginous seed.

Dioscoridis.

Two other species of ash, the rotundifolia, excelsior, and parviflora also produce manna.1 It exudes in warm dry weather spontaneously from the stem and branches; and concretes into whitish tears, which are scraped off and sold under the name of manna in the tear. The greater part of the manna, however, is obtained by longitudinal incisions about three inches in length, made on one side of the tree only in the same season, and continued from the base of the trunk upwards as far as the branches, at the distance of an inch from each other. The manna flows at first in the form of a thick juice, which gradually concretes : it is collected in baskets and known under the name of flake manna. By making the juice to concrete on straws and chips fastened near the incisions, a finer kind of manna is procured, which is called canulated manna, manna in cannoli. In Sicily this variety is received on the leaves of the prickly pear, Cactus Opuntia. The collecting begins about the middle of June, and terminates in September.2 A third kind called fat manna, manna grassa, flows from the tree in October, and

1 A substance resembling manna is also produced from the Tamarisk, and used as food by the Bedouin Arabs in the region of Mount Sinai: but Mitscher-lich asserts that it contains no mannite. Burckhardt says, "Whenever the rains-have been plentiful during winter, it drops abundantly. They gather it before sunrise, because if left in the sun it melts : they use it as we do sugar, principally in their dishes composed of flour."-Travels in Nubia, 4to. 1819. Introd. p. lxviii. Dr. Royle informs us that there are four kinds of manna known in India.:-1. called Sheerkhist, procured in Khorasan; 2. Torunjbeen, the production of Alhagi, Maurarum of De Candolle; 3. Guzunjben, from a tamarisk; 4. Shukhrcol-askur from Calolropis procera; and 5. from an umbelliferous plant.

2 Arctuarius is the first Greek who notices manna.-Friend's Hist, of Med. i. 271.

November, and owing to the rains runs to the ground, and contains many impurities.

Manna is brought to Great Britain packed in chests. The different sorts are in separate packages, and are known by the names of Flake manna, Sicilian manna1, and Calabrian manna. The best is "in oblong pieces or flakes, moderately dry, friable, light, of a whitish or pale yellow colour, and in some degree transparent: the inferior kinds are moist, unctuous, and brown."2 The best flake manna bears the impression of the branch on which it had concreted on its inner surface. Manna is said to be occasionally counterfeited by a composition of honey or sugar, mixed with scammony or some other purgative3: but such frauds are now seldom attempted; and bad or counterfeit manna may be easily discovered by its colour, weight, transparency, and taste, which are different from those of real manna.

Qualities.-Manna has a slight peculiar odour, and a sweet taste, with some degree of bitterness, leaving a slight nauseous impression on the palate. The finer pieces, which are often hollow, when broken and examined by the microscope exhibit bundles of long beautiful spicular crystals; but the general texture of the pieces is granular. It is entirely soluble in water and alcohol: and the latter, when the solution has been assisted by heat, deposits on cooling five eighths of a beautifully white inodorous crystallized matter, which was formerly regarded as pure manna, but which is now ascertained to be a peculiar saccharine principle; it has been named Mannite; whilst an uncrystallizable mucilaginous extract remains, on which probably the purgative quality of the drug depends. Fourcroy and Vauquelin suppose that the common manna of the shops contains four different ingredients:-1. Pure manna, constituting three fourths of the whole; 2. A little common sugar; 3. A yellow nauseous smelling substance, to which its purgative qualities seem owing: and, 4. Mucilage. But it is to Proust, Thenard, and Bouillon La Grange, that we are indebted for a knowledge of the chymical composition of manna.

According to Thenard's analysis, it consists of man-nite, a small proportion of pure sugar, and the nauseous uncrystallizable mucus, on which the active virtues of the drug depend.4 The Mannite differs from sugar, in being incapable of undergoing the vinous fermentation.

1 The greatest produce of Sicilian manna is in the neighbourhood of Castella-mare, Carini, Cefalu, and Caronia, where it yields an annual revenue of 40,000/. sterling----Smyth's Sicily and its Islands, 4to. 1824, p. 14.

* Lewis. 3 Alston's Mat. Med. ii, 472.

4 Ann, de Chim. t, lix. p. 51.

Medical properties and uses,-Manna is a very gentle laxative. It was extravagantly commended by some of the older physicians; but is now more justly regarded as a laxative fit for children only, and persons of very weak habits. When given in a dose sufficient for an adult, it is apt to occasion flatulence and griping; and therefore it is seldom used, except as an adjunct to senna, rhubarb, or solutions of neutral salts, with the view of covering their tastes.

The dose for children is from 3j. to 3iv.; and for adults from j. to ij.

Officinal preparations.- Confectio Senna, L.E.D. Enema Ca-tharticum, D. Enema foetidum, D. Syrupus Sennae, D.