Aspirin – nature’s wonder drug

Writer: Dr Anina Lee.

Aspirin has variously been described as “the most remarkable drug the world has ever seen”, “one of the astonishing inventions in history”, and “one of the most endurably successful commercial products of all time”.

It is one of nature’s great gifts to mankind.

How was Aspirin discovered? It all began with a willow tree. The ancients on several continents had discovered that the willow's bark reduced pain and fevers when chewed or infused in a drink. Hippocrates, he of the oath, recorded its effect, and the bark continued to be used without greatly exciting the apothecaries until the vicar of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, rediscovered it in texts in 1763.

His parishioners were much troubled with ague (fevers), so he prepared a concoction, fed it to his trusting flock, and was able to present the happy results to the Royal Society. No one, however, knew why willow bark worked. It was only in 1853 that the French chemist Charles Gerhardt identified and synthesised salicylic acid – the active ingredient of willow bark.

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