Felix Hoffmann, a young pharmacist working for the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, patents a new pain reliever. The trademark name is Aspirin.
Hoffmann, who was said to have been seeking an effective pain reliever for his father’s rheumatism, successfully synthesized acetylsalicylic acid in August 1897. It would later be marketed as Aspirin—a for “acetyl” and -spirin for Spiraea, genus of the source plant for salicylic acid, the pain-relieving agent. That August also saw Hoffmann synthesize heroin, which he accomplished accidentally while attempting to acetylate morphine to produce codeine. That discovery didn’t pan out like aspirin.
The benefits of salicylic acid as a pain reliever and fever reducer had been recognized since antiquity. Extracted from willow bark, it was commonly found in salves and teas. Unfortunately, it also caused stomach irritation.
Bayer’s patent application was rejected in Germany because Hoffmann had not actually invented acetylsalicylic acid; a French and a German chemist had each synthesized it separately decades earlier. But the U.S. Patent Office issued a patent because Hoffmann was the first to synthesize it in a stable, usable form. Bayer began an aggressive worldwide marketing campaign, the German patent office eventually came around, and Bayer AG still holds the rights to the trade name Aspirin in more than eighty countries. In the United States, the word is often used generically to refer to almost any brand of acetylsalicylic acid.
Although aspirin is not without its side effects—Reye’s syndrome is associated with a reaction to acetylsalicylic acid—it remains one of the world’s most widely used pain relievers.—TL