194 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



France ; the better-class fur obtained by the new 

 process was exported to various parts of Europe and 

 the East. The pelt of the coypu rat having come into 

 fashion about this date for second-rate hats, fewer 

 beavers were required than formerly, and as a 

 consequence their numbers, which had become 

 markedly thinned, began to increase ; these remarks 

 apply to the Canadian species. The finer quality 

 of beaver fur was formerly known as "flix," but 

 silk has long ago superseded the art of felting, 

 and the hideous chimney-pot hat of the City man 

 shines with a gloss of size and shellac, bestowed by 

 a revolving machine. 



Considerable faith was formerly placed in the 

 beaver as a "complete armoury of physic." The 

 medical practitioner can well understand that beaver 

 oil may have benefited rheumatism, though more 

 than doubting its efficacy in apoplexy, convulsions, 

 and asthma ; but beaver blood for epilepsy, beaver 

 gall for eye affections, and beaver teeth (hung round 

 the neck) for delay in teething seem strange- 

 remedies indeed. Like the more familiar cobweb, 

 beaver fur was long used to stop, bleeding and no 

 doubt acted mechanically ; beaver-skin slippers, 

 stockings, and gloves for gouty patients anticipated 

 the chamois leather used to-day for swollen 

 joints. 1 Castoreum was an orange-coloured secretion 



1. The Rev. Edward Tppsell, in 1658, recommended "for giving great 

 ease unto the gowt the skinnes of beavers burned with drie oynions. 



