From this animal were prepared many remedies which in former times were believed to have high medicinal value. Castoreum was the most popular of these, and from it was compounded the great cure-all. The skin of the beaver was thought to be an excellent preventive of colic and consumption; the fat of the beaver efficient in apoplexy and epilepsy, to stop spasms, and for various afflictions of the nerves. Powdered beaver teeth were often given in soup for the prevention of many diseases. The castoreum of the beaver was considered a most efficient remedy for earache, deafness, headache, and gout, for the restoring of the memory and the cure of insanity. Next in importance to its skin, the beaver was valued for the castoreum it yielded.
The old hunters, trappers, and first settlers forecast with confidence the weather from the actions of the beaver. This animal was credited with being weather-wise to a high degree. From his actions the nature of the oncoming winter was predicted, and plans to meet it were made accordingly. Faith in the beaver's actions and activities as a basis for weather-forecasting was almost absolute. If the beaver began work early, the winter was to begin early. If the beaver laid up a large harvest, covered the house deeply with mud, and raised the water-level of the pond, the winter was, of course, to be a long and severe one.
Extensive autumn rambles in the mountains with especial attention to beaver customs compels me to conclude that as a basis for weather prediction beaverdom is not reliable. In the course of one autumn month in the mountains of Colorado more than one hundred colonies were observed. In many colonies work for the winter commenced early. In others, only a few miles distant, preparations for the winter did not begin until late. In some, extensive preparations were made for the winter. In a few the harvest laid up was exceedingly small. Thus in one month of the same year I saw some beaver colonies preparing for a long winter and others for a short one, many preparing for a hard winter and others almost unprepared for winter. From these varied and conflicting prognostications, how was one accurately to forecast the coming winter? The old prophets in one colony frequently disagreed with aged prophets who were similarly situated, but in a neighboring colony. At one place thirty or more beaver gathered an enormous quantity of food, sufficient, in fact, to have supplied twice that number for the longest and most severe winter. The winter which followed was as mild a one as had passed over the Rocky Mountains in fifty years. Not one tenth of the big food-pile was eaten.