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.
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| 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!).
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| pottery jar for orange peel syrup |
§
wooden jar with the painted signature “PULV.
AURANT. CORT.” (orange peel powder), 19th century, from a pharmacy
in Baia Mare
§
porcelain jar with the signature “EXTR. AURANT.”
(orange extract), 19th century, from the Engel Pharmacy in Iaşi
§
jar made of glazed pottery marked “Syr. Aurant.
Cort.” (orange peel syrup), 18th century, from the Velits Pharmacy
in Turda
§
blue glass jar “OL. AURANT. FLOR” (orange flower
oil), 20th century, St. George’s Pharmacy in Cluj (hosted in the Maucksc-Hintz House, where the museum has been hosted for the last 60 years).
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| glass jar for orange flower oil |
