Acetylsalicylic Acid

In the mid- to late-1700s, English clergyman Edward Stone chewed on a piece of willow bark and discovered its analgesic property after hearing a story that declared a brew from the bark was "good for pain and whatever else ails you." The bark's active ingredient was isolated in 1827 and named salicin for the Greek word salix, meaning willow. Salicylic acid, first produced from salicin in 1838 and synthetically from phenol in 1860, was effective in treating rheumatic fever and gout but caused severe nausea and intestinal discomfort. In 1898, a chemist named Hoffmann, working at Bayer Laboratories in Germany and whose father suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, synthesized acetylsalicylic acid in a successful attempt to eliminate the side effects of salicylic acid, which, until then, was the only drug that eased his father's pain. Soon the process for making large quantities of acetylsalicylic acid was patented, and aspirin—named for its ingredients acetyl and spiralic (salicylic) acid—became available by prescription. Its popularity was immediate and worldwide. Huge demand in the United States brought manufacture of aspirin to that country in 1915 when it also became available without a prescription.