Aspirin is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world. It works as a pain reliever, heart attack preventer and cancer deterrent rolled into one. The key ingredient in Aspirin, Salicylic acid, has been used in traditional medicine since ancient times. It was harvested from the bark of the willow tree.
In 1763, a clergyman named Reverend Edward Stone, outlined the uses of the willow bark in treating fevers and other disorders. His writings on the subject are believed to have inspired the use of this bark to treat fevers by many physicians of the time.
Scientists began to study this ingredient and in 1829, a French pharmacist Pierre-Joseph Leroux managed to isolate salicin. Raffaele Piria was the first to synthesize salicylic acid from salicin. Aspirin as we know it came into being in the late 1890s in the form of acetylsalicylic acid when chemist Felix Hoffmann at Bayer Laboratories in Germany produced it from dry meadowsweet leaves. The drug became an instant hit and is commonly used today to relieve aches, pains and fevers.
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