Posted on 03/22/2011 7:06:40 PM PDT by decimon
Beavers are to be re-introduced to the Welsh countryside for the first time in at least 900 years.
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The oil found in the glands at the base of its tail contains salicylic acid (aspirin) which was used as medicine for headaches and fever in the middle ages.
Beavers lived in Wales until the 12th Century and the rest of Britain until the 16th Century but were hunted to extinction.
Gerald of Wales reported in 1188 that by then the river Teifi was its only habitat in Wales.
Scotland managed to hang onto its beavers - the last in the UK - until the 1600s and by the beginning of the 20th Century only a few colonies remained across Europe.
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(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Offbeat ping?
"The always enjoyable giant inflatable beaver."
My, that’s quite a beaver you have there, my dear. Is that Darth Beaver?
No wonder the birth rate is so low.
That’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen!
You know, beavers glands are pretty odoriferous.
“Beaver tail aspirin?”
“The oil found in the glands at the base of its tail contains salicylic acid (aspirin) which was used as medicine for headaches and fever in the middle ages.”
Well, I understand they like to chew on young willow trees, I guess that’s where they’d get it.
Um, that’s not where aspirin — nor ass-pirin — comes from.
Aspirin (salicylic acid) comes from willow bark. The willow’s scientific genus is ‘salix’. The “castoreum” oil from a beaver’s anal glands therefore does CONTAIN some salicylic acid because their diet is heavy in willow bark. But, to the best of my knowledge, nobody ever used the oily secretions from a beaver’s anal glands to cure a headache.
I guess the Brits were a little too hard on the Beaver.
Right, I was saying the beavers probably got their salicylic acid from eating the willow trees. I didn't mean that people were getting aspirin from a beaver's behind!
Oh, sorry. Otherwise I was going to say “you first!”
Actually, I shouldn’t have replied to you, but rather to the original post which made it sound like the source of analgesics was beaver butts.
Oddly, I had a beaver make a dam on my property last summer. It was the first time I’d seen one up close. I can see why their fur was so coveted, it looked like deep brown silk. So the anal gland oil is good for something anyway.
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