Manna - Later Cultural References

Later Cultural References

By extension "manna" has been used to refer to any divine or spiritual nourishment.

For many years, Roman Catholics have annually collected a clear liquid from the tomb of Saint Nicholas; legend attributes the pleasant perfume of this liquid as warding off evil, and it is sold to pilgrims as "the Manna of Saint Nicholas". The liquid gradually seeps out of the tomb, but it is unclear whether it originates from the body within the tomb, or from the marble itself; since the town of Bari is a harbor, and the tomb is below sea level, there are several natural explanations for the manna fluid, including the transfer of seawater to the tomb by capillary action.

In the seventeenth century, a woman marketed a clear, tasteless product as a cosmetic, "the Manna of Saint Nicholas of Bari". After the deaths of some 600 men, Italian authorities discovered that the alleged cosmetic was a preparation of arsenic, used by their wives.

In a modern botanical context, manna is often used to refer to the secretions of various plants, especially of certain shrubs and trees, and in particular the sugars obtained by evaporating the sap of the Manna Ash, extracted by making small cuts in the bark. The Manna Ash, native to southern Europe and southwest Asia, produces a blue-green sap, which has medicinal value as a mild laxative, demulcent, and weak expectorant.

The names of both the sugar mannose and its hydrogenated sugar alcohol, mannitol are derived from manna.

Robert Nozick famously references "manna from heaven" in a thought experiment about distributive justice.