Aurant cortex (orange peel)

Citrus fruits started to be used in Transylvania during the seventeenth century and in the subsequent century they were still rare imported goods. During the 1750s, when the Austrians introduced the first state sanitary measures, oranges, lemons and other spices sold also by the apothecary were excepted from border quarantine. In 1793 Tobias Maucksch, owner of the pharmacy in Cuj that hosts the museum, taught his son, a pharmacist to be, how to offer gifts to the good doctors in town for the New Year: doctors who enjoyed a certain reputation and wrote numerous prescription, he should offer six lemon, while doctors with less experience and activity should be content with receiving just three.

Bitter orange botanical drawing

 Oranges were highly appreciated by the apothecaries, in the form of peel extract of powder or as oil, syrup, and tinctures made from the plant’s flowers and peel. Such medicine was recommended for the tonic and antispasmodic effects and for various stomach troubles, but they were also used for the pleasant taste in mixed drugs (and even the Elixir of Love!).

pottery jar for orange peel syrup

 The History of Pharmacy collection in Cluj-Napoca includes 15 pharmaceutical jars, made of various materials, for products obtained from the peel or flowers of the „golden fruit” (Lat. aurant), attesting to their popularity:

§        wooden jar with the painted signature “PULV. AURANT. CORT.” (orange peel powder), 19^th century, from a pharmacy in Baia Mare

§        porcelain jar with the signature “EXTR. AURANT.” (orange extract), 19^th century, from the Engel Pharmacy in Iaşi

§        jar made of glazed pottery marked “Syr. Aurant. Cort.” (orange peel syrup), 18^th century, from the Velits Pharmacy in Turda

§        blue glass jar “OL. AURANT. FLOR” (orange flower oil), 20^th century, St. George’s Pharmacy in Cluj (hosted in the Maucksc-Hintz House, where the museum has been hosted for the last 60 years).

glass jar for orange flower oil