Aspirin

Aspirin tablets with enteric coating to ease stomach irritation

Bayer is a German pharmaceutical company. Friedrich Bayer received a patent for Aspirin in 1899. It is probably the most ubiquitous of nonprescription drugs.

It has its roots (pun intended) in the bark of the willow tree. The quest to create a synthetic version was an international endeavor. 

Plants like willow and meadowsweet were used as pain remedies by Sumerians and Egyptians as early as 3000 BCE. The Greek physician Hippocrates reported giving willow-leaf tea to women in the throes of childbirth to help ease their labor pains. 

In 1783, an English clergyman named Edward Stone wrote a letter to the Royal Society. He explained that, over five years, he had had consistent success in relieving ague and fever in his parishioners by giving them dried white willow bark. In 1828, a German pharmacy professor isolated the active ingredient in willow bark and named the bitter yellow crystals “salicin,” after the Latin name for white willow — Salix alba. Extracting the salicin from plants was difficult, and required a large amount of plant matter to produce the necessary quantity, so scientists went to work on a synthetic version. 

A German chemist named Hermann Kolbe first synthesized salicylic acid in 1860. In 1895, a Bayer chemist named Felix Hoffmann was given the task of developing a “new and improved” synthetic salicylic acid product. He had a personal connection to the task. His father suffered from rheumatism but couldn’t take salicylic acid without vomiting because it irritated his stomach. Hoffmann studied the scientific literature and felt that combining an acetyl group with salicylic acid would yield a gentler product.

He came up with an effective synthetic version in 1897, and once it passed clinical trials, Bayer sought a patent for the brand name Aspirin.

The "A” for acetylsalicylic acid. The “-spir” for Spiraea ulmaria, or meadowsweet, which was a botanical source of salicylic acid. The "-in” because it was a common suffix for drugs at that time. 

By 1950, it was the best-selling pain reliever in the world.

a 1950s bottle and box