Aspirin

The Acetyl Salicylic Acid for reducing pain; its history

Searching for some medicine that could reduce the pain, human beings have tested many natural substancies along their history. An appropiate treatment for these headaches and temperature for a long time, was using the peel or also know skin of a tree called white willow, or salix alba. Anyway, at beginning, no-one could assure why its effects were painkillers and could low the temperature down. In 1793, Edward Stone, introduces the first report about the white willow’s healing characteristics at the English Medicine Royal Academy, from that moment on more people started studying this medicine more deeply, reaching a conclusion: this tree had an active ingredient called salicyn (from the greek, "salicina").

aspirin molecule

Old European scientists wished to know the secret of the salix alba skin, that’s why in 1828 Johann A. Buchner could get a substance with the shape of enlarged yellow crystals and a bitter taste which later, was known as salicyn. We also have to assert that other plants like Spiraea ulmaria also contain this substance.

In 1853 Charles F. Gerhardt, a French chemist, he increased the process of the salicina in order to get a higher effect which could last more time, however, the result contained high levels of toxicity and harmful compounds.

How the name "Aspirin" came out

By the middle of 1897, after spending 40 years without results, a chemist, Felix Hoffmann, who worked for a company named Bayer, went back to the research getting a pure and permanent state of this acid called salicyne or aspirin. Form that moment till today, the aspirin is the sinonim of this acid named salicina, and is also the most studied medicine in this kind of industry and medical history.
The name aspirin comes from a plant called Spiraea “spir”, “A” for the process of getting this acid in its pure state and the ending “in” was very used by that time when they have to name any kind of medicine. That’s how we get the word ASPIRIN and its translation into Spanish ASPIRINA.