“Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” is a medical cliché, but that doesn’t mean that aspirin is something to ignore. Even Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed an early form of aspirin for patients suffering from minor pains.
Aspirin, known by its technical name of acetylsalicylic acid, belongs to a group of drugs called salicylates. It’s commonly used for minor aches and pains, to reduce fever, and to relieve inflammation. Aspirin also inhibits the production of platelets in the blood, making it useful in preventing clots that may cause heart attacks and strokes. In addition, low doses of aspirin administered immediately after a heart attack can reduce the risk of a second attack or damage to cardiac tissue.
Hippocrates and other early physicians used extracts of willow bark or the plant spiraea (found in Europe and Asia) to treat headaches, pain, and fevers.
In 1853, a French chemist named Charles Frederic Gerhardt was the first scientist to create acetylsalicylic acid, but it wasn’t until 1897 that chemists at Bayer AG first produced a version of salicin that was gentler on the stomach than pure salicylic acid. The new drug’s name, “aspirin,” was based on the word “spiraea.” By 1899 it was being sold by Bayer throughout the world.
Following World War I, “aspirin” became a generic term, although Aspirin with a capital A remains a registered trademark of Bayer in Germany, Canada, Mexico, and more than 80 other countries.