Today's useless fact - How was aspirin first discovered and marketed as a pain reliever?

In 1897, Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist employed by Bayer, came across an earlier recipe for a gentle analgesic. Seeking to relieve his father's arthritis pain, Hoffmann used French chemist Charles Frederic Gerhardt's 1853 research to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), a compound less acidic and easier on the stomach than its predecessor, sodium salicylate. In 1899, the product was named aspirin and, after extensive testing, Bayer began marketing it successfully in powder form.

The active ingredient of aspirin, salicin, has been prescribed since the 5th century B.C., when Greek physician Hippocrates treated aches and pains, fevers, and inflammations with a bitter powder extracted from willow bark.

It wasn't until the 1970s that British researcher John Vane described the precise way aspirin works -- by blocking the production of hormone-like substances known as prostoglandins, which are released in response to human tissue injury.

Aspirin (with a capital A) and Heroin (with a capital H) were actually trademarks of Bayer up through the end of World War I. However, following Germany's defeat, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the country's war reparations. Believe it or not, the trademarks were given up at the Treaty of Versailles to France, England, Russia, and the United States in 1919. They never mentioned that in history class in high school! Check out the links in our Aspirin category for more.