The Story of Aspirin
We take aspirin for granted; we have had it as a handy analgesic since
1899. It has, however, a history far longer than that, and during its
subsequent time as a commercial tablet, it has been at the heart of
medical, advertising, scientific and historic controversies. In
Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, Diarmuid Jeffreys has
told the whole story of a drug that became a standard tablet only
after many centuries of use, and then, when other pain relievers were
crowding it out, became a nostrum for heart attack and stroke
prevention, as well as other indications. It is a terrific story of
many side branches, and Jeffrey’s has told it with a lively sense of
humor (for there are many wrong-headed notions along the way, and many
peculiar people) and also admiration for those who have pursued the
development and use of aspirin in a scientific way.
Physicians in ancient Egypt used extracts from willow trees as
analgesics, and probably learned about them from the Sumerians before.
Hippocrates and Galen knew of it, but we lost wisdom about such things
in the Middle Ages. The modern story begins with the Reverend Edward
Stone who lived in Chipping Norton, England. Around 1757, Stone came
to correct conclusions about willow bark, but used doubtful reasoning,
for instance that it was bitter like quinine and so would help fevers.
There was a boom in chemical synthesis in the nineteenth century, and
Friedrich Bayer & Co., a German firm, succeeded in making pure ASA in
quantities, and christened it Aspirin. There were few proven drugs on
the market at the time, drugs like quinine and digitalis, and other
than the opiates, there were no proven analgesics. This meant that
Aspirin quickly became one of the most widely used drugs in the world.
In 1920, the trade name Aspirin was legally determined to have passed
into common usage, and from then on, anyone, not just Bayer, could
make ASA and call it aspirin. Aspirin makers fought in advertising,
but by the sixties, they had other battles to fight; Tylenol was