History of Aspirin

Importance of natural materials and ingredients in modern medical technology cannot be stressed strongly enough. Maybe the best example of how ancient recipes become products of medical industry of today, is a drug known as Aspirin.

The father of modern medicine was Hippocrates , who lived sometime between 460 B.C and 377 B.C. Hippocrates has left historical records of pain relief treatments, including the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree to help heal headaches, pains and fevers. So the main compound of modern aspirin has been known for more than 24 centuries.

By 1829, scientists discovered that it was the compound called salicin in willow plants which gave pain relief to its users.

French chemist Henri Leroux had extracted salicin, in crystalline form for the first time, and Raffaele Piria, an Italian chemist then working at the Sorbonne in Paris, succeeded in obtaining the salicylic acid in its pure state, in 1838.

The problem was that salicylic acid was tough on stomachs and a means of 'buffering' the compound was searched for. The first person to do so was a French chemist named Charles Frederic Gerhardt . In 1853, Gerhardt neutralized salicylic acid by buffering it with sodium (sodium salicylate) and acetyl chloride, creating acetylsalicylic acid, which is actually the modern Aspirin. Gerhardt's product worked but he had no desire to market it and abandoned his discovery.

In 1899, a German chemist named Felix Hoffmann , who worked for a German company called Bayer , rediscovered Gerhardt's formula. Felix Hoffmann made some of the formula and gave it to his father who was suffering from the pain of arthritis. With good results, Felix Hoffmann then convinced Bayer to market the new wonder drug. Aspirin was patented on March 6, 1889.

The folks at Bayer came up with the name Aspirin, it comes from the 'A" in acetyl chloride, the "spir" in spiraea ulmaria (the plant they derived the salicylic acid from) and the 'in' was a then familiar name ending for medicines.

Aspirin was first sold as a powder. In 1915, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Aspirin is widely used to treat symptoms of pain related to rheumatism, lumbago & neuralgia.

In 1948., Dr. Lawrence Craven, a California general practitioner, notices that the 400 men he prescribed aspirin to hadn't suffered any heart attacks. He regularly recommends to all patients and colleagues that "an aspirin a day" could dramatically reduce the risk of heart attack.

Bayer Aspirin tablets were included in the self-medication kits taken to the moon by the Apollo astronauts, 1969.-1975.. Aspirin proved very effective in combating the headaches and muscle pains that frequently resulted from long periods of immobility. These years, medical world began to understand how aspirin works when scientists discovered that it inhibits the production of chemicals, called prostaglandins, that are involved in inflammations.

So, the only real difference between present scientific knowledge of Aspirin, and the knowledge of Hippocrates 24 centuries ago is that we seem to know why it works, and are able to extend its usage on several diseases of modern times. That is not much progress, but that tells us how far we are really, in some areas of medical science.