The first pharmacy museum in Cluj

The first history of pharmacy exhibition opened in Cluj in 1917 and was on display for the general public until 1918. The more than 1000 artifacts had been gathered by Dr. Iuliu (Gyula) Orient (1869-1940), professor of toxicology at the Hungarian and subsequently Romanian university of Cluj. Dr. Orient was also a surgeon, a pharmacist, and a passionate collector of old apothecary goods. At the end of the 19th century he started collecting such artifacts and after discussing the idea with Béla Pósta, the director of the Erdélyi Nemzeti Múzeum (National Transylvanian Museum), he launched a public call for donations that would allow for the foundation of a pharmacy museum. Between 1902 and 1918, Iuliu Orient donated his own collection and various artifacts offered by other pharmacists in answer to the public call to the museum. He was directly involved in organizing this initial history of pharmacy display in two of the ground floor rooms of the history museum. Dr. Orient published several studies describing his collecting efforts, sometimes his disappointment with the process, and the structure of the exhibition – with the various historical pharmaceutical artifacts on display in/on original pharmaceutical furniture. Today, these rooms house the library of the National Museum of Transylvanian History, on C. Daicoviciu st. 2, Cluj-Napoca.