Aspirin

Mike Visconti

Aspirin was originally invented by the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates. He lived between 460 B.C. and 377 B.C. Hippocrates used powder from bark and leaves from a willow plant to ease headaches, pains, and fevers. In 1828, a scientist named Johann Buchner isolated a small amount of salicin, which he named, and combined another compound with it. When he did this he formed an acid, which he named salicytic acid. The problem was that the acid was tough on people’s stomachs. So, someone had to “buffer” the acid. Charles Gerhardt was the first person to do this. He buffered it by mixing it with sodium and acetyl chloride, which made acetylsalicylic acid. But, he had no reason to market the acid and decided to abandon it. So In 1899 a man named Felix Hoffmann brought the idea back. He worked for a company call Bayer. He made some of the mixture and gave it to his father who had arthritis. The acid worked and relieved some of the pain. He convinced his company to market the new idea. Finally on March 6, 1889, Aspirin was patented. At first it was sold as a powder, but then later tablets were made and sold. It may be that if Aspirin was never invented, many other medicines may not have been also. It made a massive impact on many of lives across the world. People may not realize the next time they take an Aspirin how long it took to perfect and how many other people it helped.

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