Medicinal jar

Sicilian albarello jar used for mustard

Earthenware storage jars for drugs have been found on archaeological sites in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Greece and Rome.[5] The technology appears to have originated in Mesopotamia in 600–400 B.C.[6] A number of innovations occurred in Western Asia regarding pottery decoration, particularly the development of tin glazes to enable jars to contain fluids.[7] The tin glaze was believed to have originated in Mesopotamia in 600–400 B.C.[8] By the 12th to 13th centuries jars were lustreware which gave a sheen to the surface of the jars.[8]

Jars from Syria and Persia were taken to Spain from the 13th to 14th centuries after which Spanish and Italian potters began to manufacture jars.[6][9] The tin glaze technique which allowed decoration of the jars was known in Europe as maiolica, faience or delftware.[8] These different terms referred not to technical differences in the jars' manufacture but stylistic differences.[6]

The style of jar known as albarello also came from the Middle Eastern Islamic potters.[8][10] The albarello is cylindrical in shape usually with a narrow waist; it has a flange at the open end. A parchment cover could be tied over the flange to seal the contents.[8] Other jars were ovoid or globular in shape. Syrup jars had spouts and handles.[11] Other items used by apothecaries were dispensing and ointment pots, pill tiles and mortars.[11]

Potteries producing jars were located in Spain, France, Italy, Sicily, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Britain.[12]

Jars were widely used in Europe and Latin America at the beginning of the 19th century but during the 18th and 19th centuries production of glass storage bottles was increased.[13]

English pill tile, 17th century

Animal, mineral and vegetable ingredients were stored in the jars.[14]

Vegetable ingredients included culinary herbs, fruits, roots, leaves, seeds, flowers, wood, oils, gums and resins.[14] Spices used for medicinal purposes included cassia bark, tamarind, nux vomica, senna, sandalwood, cloves and nutmeg.[5] These came from the Near East and later ingredients from the New World included copaiva balsam, sarsaparilla, tobacco, cinchona bark (quinine) and ipecacuanha.[14]

Some common animal products were contained, such as honey, butter, beeswax and chicken fat as well as more unusual ingredients including foxes' lungs, earthworms, scorpions, musk, ambergris and ivory.[15] Minerals used included precious stones and sulphur, mercury, antimony and other minerals.[15]

Medicinal jars are collected in the Wellcome Museum, Royal College of Surgeons and Royal Pharmaceutical Society in London, the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia,[16] the Esteve Pharmacy in Llívia, Spain, the Pharmacy Museum at the University of Basel in Switzerland and the Pharmacy Museum, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków, Poland.

• Medicinal jars
• 
  Syrian medicinal jars made circa 1300, excavated in Fenchurch Street, London, an example of Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe. Museum of London.
• 
  Spanish albarello with two rabbits nibbling a grape vine, 14th century
• 
  Italian two-handled "oak leaf" jar with male and female portraits, 15th century
• 
  Syrup jar for oil of foxes, Italy, 18th century
• 
  Faentine albarello jar with white-bearded turbaned physicians and trophies of arms, 16th century
• 
  Faentine jar with the head of a warrior, 16th century
• 
  Italian jars showing St Matthew, 16th–17th century
• 
  Dutch albarello jar, 17th century
• 
  English jar for caryocostin, 17th century
• 
  Spanish albarello used for cinchona bark, 18th century
• 
  English delftware syrup jar, 18th century

• Theriac

• Medical history and special collections: apothecary jars. Duke University Medical Center Library and Archives
• Apothecary jars and their contents. Center for History of Medicine at the Countway Library, Boston
• Ceramic drug containers. Smithsonian Museum