The tablet was the precursor of modern mass produced medicines, and has probably cured more minor ills than any other drug.
In 1829, the French pharmacist H. Leroux identified the active element in willow bark to be salicin. In 1853 a chemistry professor at France’s Montpellier University, Karl Friedrich Gerhardt, discovered the molecular structure of salicylic acid.
The use of salicylic acid did not become common until 1853 when Von Gerhardt of Bayer developed aspirin.
In 1897, Felix Hoffmann prepared a more pure of aspirin using an improved method. He had studied Charles Gerhardt’s experiments and ‘rediscovered’ the pain-relieving, fever-lowering and anti-inflammatory acetylsalicylic acid.
In 1899, Hoffmann, a Bayer chemist, used aspirin to treat his father’s rheumatism.
Hoffman’s colleague, Heinrich Dreser, investigated the overall medical effects of the new drug and recognized it to be effective not only as a mild sedative but also as a reducer of fever and inflammations.
In 1899, Hoffman and Dreser coined a new name for that new drug: aspirin – ‘a’ for ‘acetyl’, ‘spir’ for the Spirea plant family and ’in’ to round it off.
In United States Bayer was able to obtain a patent in 1900, giving the company the monopoly on manufacturing the drug aspirin.
The first clinical trial of aspirin in patients occurred from 1948 to 1956 when a general practitioner, Lawrence Craven treated 1500 relatively healthy, overweight, sedentary men between the ages of 40 to 65.
The result reported in the Mississippi Valley Journal is that one aspirin a day was sufficient, because none of Lawrence Craven’s 1500 patients experienced a heart attack over the five-year course of treatment.
In 1971, John R. Vane discovered that aspirin works by blocking cyclooxygenase, thus preventing the synthesis of prostaglandins.
Discovery of aspirin
