How was aspirin invented?

In the course of history, people used the bark or leaves of the willow tree for medicinal purposes. Hippocrates, among other things, suggested that people suffering from pain produce tea from the leaves of willow. Others told the patients that chewing on the Willow bark would relieve their pain. In the first half of the nineteenth century, scientists were isolated a substance present in the willow tree, leading to the discovery of aspirin. However, this was not practical to use, because people who used salicylic acid suffered severe mouth irritation and stomach and sometimes even death. The procedure for this compound was time -consuming and difficult, which caused Gerhardt to leave his project without his marketing.

In 1894, a German chemist named Felix Hoffman was looking for a way to treat his father's arthritis pain. Together with the researcher named Arthur Eichengrün, he encountered Gerhardt's experiments and replicated them, creating acetylsalicylic acid or aspirin. This was the first medicine that was not an exact copy of something found in nature, but synthesized in the laboratory.This synthetic drug was the beginning of the pharmaceutical industry.

Hoffman gave his arthritic father who had experienced pain. Bayer decided to patent and aspirin on the market, along with another drug Hoffman synthesized heroin. Heroin was a synthetic version of morphine and was originally more successful than aspirin because he considered himself healthier. When heroin was found to be extremely addictive, aspirin began to sell it.

Aspirin was carefully named Bayer. The prefix "A" was supposed to mean the process of acetylation that Gerhardt first performed with salicylic acid experiments. The root "Spirip" has been selected because salicylic acid comes from the spirea plant. At that time, the 'in' suffix was a common end of medicines. So the name aspirin was created.

Although Charles Gerhard thought his compound was unnecessary, aspirin had many uses. The people of him dnES commonly used to relieve pain and fever. Scientists are investigating aspirin for other uses, including possible prevention of moves and heart attacks, diabetes control and slowing of cancer tumors and cataracts.

Every year, more than £ 70 million aspirin is produced worldwide. It is the most used medicine in the United States. Aspirin was originally produced in powder form and is still sold in this way in most Europe. Aspirin tablets were introduced by Bayer in 1915.