Europe discovers civet cats and civet

Abstract

Aromatic civet, the natural product of the civet cat, initially entered the European scene as an imported medicine. Later, when it was obtained from semidomesticated civet cats, more of the valued civet became available and it played an expanded role in the general use of aromatics of vegetable and animal origin. Aromatic herbs, fruits, resins, and roots were very early used in European medicines. One need only consult the Natural History of Pliny and the Materia medica of Dioscorides, both dating from the first century A.D., to appreciate the well-developed medicinal uses of odoriferous vegetable products, many of which came from the East. Of the four medicinal aromatics originating in large animals castoreum, musk, ambergris, and civet three were introduced into European medicine only after the decline of the Roman Empire. Castoreum, or castor, the dried preputial follicles of male and female beavers (Castor fiber) and the secretion obtained from these glands, was known and employed in medicine from ancient times to the early modern period.' In the seventeenth century the English physician Nicholas Culpeper summed up the traditional uses of castoreum: