The Story of Aspirin

I took aspirin for my headache when I remember there are a lot of kind of aspirin. I know aspirin tablet for headache and aspirin cardio with enteric coat for prevent heart attack. When I look at the website of aspirin, Bayer (the factory which aspirin is made) released another kind of aspirin, which are aspirin powder, aspirin effervescent tablet and aspirin effervescent powder. This drug has experienced a lot since the substance have being still in the bark of tree. What make me amazed with this drug is there is a book titled “Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug”. In 335 pages, the author, Dairmuid Jeffreys, tells us history, chemistry, pharmacology, politics, and economics aspect from aspirin. Now, I will tell the overview of aspirin’s story.

The story began from willow tree. Willow is a plant that used as anti-inflammatory or pain reliever for non-specific aches and pains by ancient civilizations. Mesopotamia civilizations made the extract from willow trees to treat fever, pain, and inflammation. The Chinese used poplar bark and willow shoots to treat rheumatic fever, colds, hemorrhages, and goiter. In Greece, Hippocrates recommended chewing on willow-tree bark to patients suffering from fever and pain and administering willow leaf tea to women to ease the pain of childbirth. I think, in the past, where willow-tree lived there were people used it as medicine.

At 18th century, people have begun to study about willow. In 1763, The Royal Society published clinical study, submitted by Edward Stone, about the use of dried powder of willow bark in curing fever. The chemical investigation of the healing properties of the willow bark had already begun in the early 19th century. In 1826, the Italians Brugnatelli and Fontana tried to produce a pure extract of the willow bark but they got highly impure form. 

Two years later, in 1828, Joseph Buchner, professor of pharmacy at Munich University, Germany, succeeded in extracting the active ingredient which bitter tasting yellow crystal from willow that named salicin, the latin word for willow. So, here we know that salicin named that because it is contained in the Salix (willow). Before I know it, I thought Salix named that because it containing the salicin. The following year, in 1829, The French chemist, Henri Leroux refined the salicin extraction process, yielding about 30 gram from .5 kg of bark.

In 1853, Charles Gerhart, French chemist from Montpellier University, determined that molecular structure as salicylic acid and synthesized Acetylsalicylic acid. In 1897, Felix Hoffmann, the German chemist who working for Bayer pharmaceutical company, found that adding an acetyl group to salicylic acid reduces the irritant properties. As soon, Bayer process the patent.

On 6 March 1899 the Bayer company registered the product under the trade name Aspirin. The letter ‘A’ stands for acetyl, “spir” is derived from the plant known as Spiraea ulmaria (meadowsweet), which yields salicin, and “in” was a common suffix used for drugs at the time of the first stable synthesis of acetylsalicylic acid. Actively, Bayer began to distribute the white powder of aspirin to hospital and clinics. The first tablet form of Aspirin appeared in 1900, creating an ease of use that quickly expanded the drug’s recognition among professionals. 

Medical report highlighted the benefits of aspirin, and its popularity reflected the already significant use of salicylic compounds, coupled with the fact that this new drug was considerably safer and comparably less toxic. In 1915 aspirin became available to the public without a prescription, making it arguably the first modern, synthetic, over the counter, mass-market medicine, and a household name around the world. In 1950, Aspirin entered the Guinness World Records for being the most frequently sold painkiller.

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This picture is one of advertisement of aspirin in Java at Kejawen magazine in 1936.

Aspirin’s popularity declined after the development of acetaminophen/ paracetamol in 1956 and ibuprofen in 1962. But the story about aspirin has not came to the end yet. The research about aspirin has being continued.