Notes on the prior existence of the castor fiber in Scotland, with its ancient and present distribution in Europe, and on the use of castoreum / by Charles Wilson, M.D.

  • Wilson, Charles, 1804-1883.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the prior existence of the castor fiber in Scotland, with its ancient and present distribution in Europe, and on the use of castoreum / by Charles Wilson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    NOTES ON THE PRIOR EXISTENCE OE THE CASTOR EIBER IN SCOTLAND, WITH ITS ANCIENT AND PRESENT DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE, AND ON THE USE OF CASTOREUM. The Castor Fiber or Beaver, long an animal of great interest to the physician and the naturalist, is evidently fast disappearing from the countries of Europe. Yielding to the progress of that civilization, to which it is obnoxious from its habits, while valu- able for its spoils, it has already seceded wholly from many tracts which it formerly inhabited; and now only finds refuge in a few remote and secluded haunts, where it still seeks to shelter itself in a precarious and always decreasing security. Before it be finally lost from among us, it must be interesting to con- sider where were formerly its principal homes, whether in our own or in foreign lands, as in what spots it yet lingers. The castoreum which it supplies to medicine, a drug dignified by a celebrity of more than two thousand years, and highly valued even at the present day by many continental physicians, is also vanishing rapidly from among the approved resources of practice in this country, and must, in all probability, speedily become beyond attainment elsewhere. A few notices of its former and present relations to pharmacology and medicine cannot be out of place, at a time which thus marks an era, if not the near close, of its history, along with that of its source. Even in Asia, we need hardly add, or in its comparatively A