# Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum)

**Cinnamomo*; *canella**

**Known today as.** The bark of *Cinnamomum verum*; “fine” cinnamon in the oil.

Kind: Plant  
Qualities: Hot and dry (Galenic tradition).

## What did Canale use it for?

In the vomits, the distilled water, the cockerel, and the oil for the bewitched; in Scripture’s anointing oil (chs. 5–6, 9; Treatise Two).

## What does modern science say?

Aromatic and carminative; it settles the stomach, which is why it was added to harsh medicines. Trials find it lowers fasting blood sugar a little in diabetes, not enough to matter. Most “cinnamon” sold in America is cassia, whose coumarin can harm the liver at a few teaspoons a day; true Ceylon cinnamon has almost none.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **cinnamaldehyde**: the flavour
- **coumarin**: in cassia, up to 1 per cent
- **eugenol**: in the leaf oil

**Mechanism.** Cinnamaldehyde activates the TRPA1 receptor; coumarin injures the liver in sensitive people.

**Dose.** Coumarin’s tolerable intake is 0.1 mg per kilogram a day, which a few teaspoons of cassia exceed.

**Standing.** A food; cassia’s coumarin is regulated in the European Union.

## What lore surrounds it?

The Portuguese seized the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon in 1518; the Dutch took them in 1638 and kept so strict a monopoly that they burned surplus bark in Amsterdam to hold up the price, until the British came in 1796 and the plant was carried to Java and the Seychelles.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Herodotus.** Records the Arabian tale that cinnamon was gathered from the nests of great birds, brought down with lumps of meat.

**Exodus.** Names cinnamon and cassia in the holy anointing oil (30:23), and Herodotus says the Egyptians used it in embalming.

**Pliny.** Gives prices for cinnamon and cassia that run into hundreds of denarii a pound, and for the dearest 1,500, and that Nero burned a year’s supply at the funeral of Poppaea in AD 65; the Arabian tales of its gathering, he says, were put about to raise the price.

## Sources

- Pliny, *Natural History* XII.
- Exodus 30:23.
- Abraham, K., et al. (2010). “Toxicology and risk assessment of coumarin.” *Molecular Nutrition and Food Research* 54.

---

*Cinnamon.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cinnamon

Historical description, not medical advice.