Aspirin
AspirinAspirin is in the purses and backpacks of over millions of people around the world. Americans consume more than 80 billion tablets of aspirin a year. The drug has an incredible past and an amazing future. The past of aspirin reaches as far back as Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C. where he used a powder from a willow tree to ease aches and pains. To the future in laboratories and clinics where scientists are looking for new uses for this “Wonder Drug.”
Aspirin is in the family of chemicals called salicylates. Many people who practice medicine for many centuries have known the chemicals in this family. The first mention of Aspirin was by the father of medicine Hippocrates who wrote about a bitter powder extracted from the bark of a willow tree. He wrote about the success of the bark in curing aches and pains. The chemical in the bark is a chemical known as salicin. The chemical than can be converted by the body into salicylic acid. The man who uncovered this was a pharmacist known as Leroux in 1829. He discovered that in high doses the chemical can reduce pain and swelling especially for arthritis. The only problem with this chemical is that it caused severe stomach irritation (Hoffman 2).
Than in August 1897 in comes German industrial chemist Felix Hoffmann. Who set out to find a drug to ease his father’s arthritis and that wouldn’t cause stomach irritation as with the salicylate. The salicylate was the only drug available at that time to ease the pain of arthritis. So Hoffmann set out to find a less acidic formula for the chemical. All the searching led him to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid also known as ASA which chemical formula is C9H8O4.The compound is similar to salicylate but has a therapeutic property that will not cause stomach irritation. His studies found that ASA reduced fever, relieved moderate pain, and at high doses relieved arthritis (Flieger 1). But than in 1897 Hoffmann’s superiors doubted him they didn’t believe that ASA would become valuable and didn’t think it had been tested enough. By 1899 however one of Bayer’s, the company who employed Hoffmann, top chemist’s a man named Dreser finished demonstrating the usefulness of the drug and gave it a new name Aspirin. The name came from a plant relative of the rose the makes salicylic acid. At this time Bayer now supported the medicine and spread the word to market the new pill to the world. This is the beginning of how the Wonder Drug became the worlds most known drug.
Aspirin is a very interesting drug in the way it works and how it actually heals. The main ingredient in aspirin ASA inhibits chemical processes within the body including natural physiological processes causing pain and inflammation (”Aspirin” 1)....
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