When you reach for an Aspirin to sooth a killer headache following a spirited celebration, have you ever given any thought to who invented this popular cure-all for hangovers? German chemist Felix Hoffmann created this miracle drug in 1897 when he worked for the pharmaceutical giant Bayer. With an estimated 700 to 1,000 clinical trials conducted each year, Aspirin remains one of the most researched drugs in the world. Its basic compound, derived from the willow bark, has been in use since 3000 – 1500 BCE.
Bayer Aspirin – since 1897 one of the world’s favorite medications for pain, fever and inflammation. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com
Bayer Aspirin as sold in Germany. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com
History of Aspirin
In 1897, scientists at the German drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less irritating replacement for common salicylate medicines and discovered a new way of synthesizing it. Felix Hoffman, figured out how to reduce the nausea associated with salicylic acid while retaining its pain killing powers. In 1899, Bayer named the new drug ASPIRIN. The name is derived from the letter “A” for acetyl. SPIR refers to the plant Spiraea ulmaria, a genus of shrubs that includes natural sources of salicylic acid, the drug’s key ingredient. IN was a common suffix used for drugs at the time.
Other uses for Aspirin
Not only is Aspirin one of the world’s favorite medications for pain, fever and inflammation, it is also credited with protecting against heart attacks, strokes and some cancers. Aside from medicinal uses, it removes sweat stains from clothes, eliminates calluses, removes rust, revives dead car batteries and acts as an exfoliant among other things.
Loss of the Aspirin trademark
After World War I, the company’s trademarks – “Bayer” and “Aspirin” – were expropriated by the United States, Russia, France and Great Britain, the allies fighting against Germany. According to the Treaty of Versailles Germany agreed to pay billions of dollars (in today’s terms) in reparations. But because cash payments would have led to hyperinflation of the German currency and thereby devaluated the reparations paid, Germany agreed to pay with coal, steel and intellectual property instead. The Aspirin trademark was one of the intellectual properties that helped pay WWI reparations.
In 1994, the company won back the protection of the “Bayer” trademark in the United States. But because “Aspirin” had become a generic term in most of the world by then, Bayer could not get that trademark back. Nonetheless, Bayer makes 12,000 of the 50,000 tons of Aspirin produced each year.
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