So Now You Know
In 1863 Friedrich Bayer and Friedrich Weskott formed Friedrich Bayer et Compagnie to manufacture coal tar dyes. The company employed chemists to come up with innovative dyes and products. In 1897, while experimenting with a waste product of one of the dye components to find relieve for his father's rheumatism, Felix Hoffmann chemically synthesised a stable form of salicylic acid powder. The compound became the active ingredient in Aspirin. The title was named "a" from acetyl, and "spir" from the spirea plant, meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria, also known as Spiraea ulmaria), the source of salicin.
Hoffmann did not discover "aspirin." He "rediscovered" it after studying experiments on acetylsalicylic acid made 40 years earlier by French chemist Charles Gergardt. In 1837, Gergardt produced good results, but the procedure was difficult and time consuming. He decided that it was not practical, and set it aside. But Gerhardt knew quite well about potential cures of acetylsalicylic acid because it had been proclaimed for more than 3500 years
Although it relieved pain, the willow bark extract, salicylic acid, caused severe stomach and mouth irritation. Hoffmann's breakthrough came on 10 August 1897 when he produced the first 100% chemically pure form of acetylsalicylic acid, thus without the free salicylic acid.
Aspirin was Hoffmann's most remarkable, but not his only success. A few days after he succeeded in synthesising acetylsalicylic acid, he manufactured another compound for which the Bayer company had high hopes, but today finds dubious popularity: diacetylmorphine, or heroin, a substance obtained a few decades earlier by English chemist C.R.A. Wright. Heroin was prescribed cautiously during WWI but by 1931 it disappeared from medicine lists in almost all countries.
Hoffmann did not discover "aspirin." He "rediscovered" it after studying experiments on acetylsalicylic acid made 40 years earlier by French chemist Charles Gergardt. In 1837, Gergardt produced good results, but the procedure was difficult and time consuming. He decided that it was not practical, and set it aside. But Gerhardt knew quite well about potential cures of acetylsalicylic acid because it had been proclaimed for more than 3500 years
Although it relieved pain, the willow bark extract, salicylic acid, caused severe stomach and mouth irritation. Hoffmann's breakthrough came on 10 August 1897 when he produced the first 100% chemically pure form of acetylsalicylic acid, thus without the free salicylic acid.
Aspirin was Hoffmann's most remarkable, but not his only success. A few days after he succeeded in synthesising acetylsalicylic acid, he manufactured another compound for which the Bayer company had high hopes, but today finds dubious popularity: diacetylmorphine, or heroin, a substance obtained a few decades earlier by English chemist C.R.A. Wright. Heroin was prescribed cautiously during WWI but by 1931 it disappeared from medicine lists in almost all countries.
