CHAPTER IX. 



Castoreum Ai,one; Vai,ded Formeri,y— A Panacea in Eari,y Medicine- 

 Composition OF European and American Varieties — Early 

 Treatise on the Medicinai^ importance of the Beaver — The 

 Secret op Soi,omon's Wisdom. 



The earliest references we have to the beaver in history date 

 back to 500 B.C., when Hippocrates mentioned it in connection 

 with the medical uses of castoreum, and from the fact that Pliny- 

 wrote that the creature's life was spared on the surrender of the 

 valuable pouches of castoreum, we gather that it was for these alone 

 that the animal was hunted. We know for certain that a thousand 

 years elapsed before the felting property of the fur was discovered. 



In 1685, a treatise on the medico-chemical uses of the beaver ap- 

 peared, and from it we learn that all the various parts of the animal 

 were accepted specifics for most of human ills, and with the great 

 value attached to its curative powers, we can understand how keenly 

 it must have been hunted. When some of the supposed medicinal 

 powers are reviewed, it will seem ridiculous that such ideas could 

 ever have been seriously entertained, but the belief in the miracu- 

 lous properties of the castoreum is still shared by so many, that the 

 crude article is even now regularly sold in our drug stores, and its 

 value steadily increases, so that quotations of from $8.00 to f 10.00 

 per pound are current for rough Canadian "Castors," as the pouches 

 are sometimes called, while the Russian article is even more valu- 

 able. About six pairs of pouches weigh a pound, and in size and 

 appearance they are well described as resenibling dried and withered 

 pears. The following analysis taken from Watt's "Dictionary of 

 Chemistry ' ' shows how greatly the two differ : 



