Deank wrote:aspirin is used for FAR FAR FAR more then heart stuff and aches and pains.
I guess that is one HELL of a good thing that Native Americans gave to the world eh?
That who gave the world?
Looks like a Frenchman did it to me:
A French chemist, Charles Frederic Gerhardt, was the first to prepare acetylsalicylic acid in 1853. In the course of his work on the synthesis and properties of various acid anhydrides, he mixed acetyl chloride with a sodium salt of salicylic acid (sodium salicylate). A vigorous reaction ensued, and the resulting melt soon solidified.[8] Since no structural theory existed at that time, Gerhardt called the compound he obtained "salicylic-acetic anhydride" (wasserfreie Salicylsäure-Essigsäure). This preparation of aspirin ("salicylic-acetic anhydride") was one of the many reactions Gerhardt conducted for his paper on anhydrides and he did not pursue it further.
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Six years later, in 1859, von Gilm obtained analytically pure acetylsalicylic acid (which he called "acetylierte Salicylsäure", acetylated salicylic acid) by a reaction of salicylic acid and acetyl chloride.[9] In 1869 Schröder, Prinzhorn and Kraut repeated both Gerhardt's (from sodium salicylate) and von Gilm's (from salicylic acid) syntheses and concluded that both reactions gave the same compound—acetylsalicylic acid. They were first to assign to it the correct structure with the acetyl group connected to the phenolic oxygen.[10]
In 1897, scientists at the drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for standard common salicylate medicines. By 1899, Bayer had dubbed this drug Aspirin and was selling it around the world.[11] The name aspirin is derived from acetyl and "spirsäure" = an old (German) name for salicylic acid.[12] The popularity of aspirin grew over the first half of the twentieth century, spurred by its supposed effectiveness in the wake of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. However recent research suggests that the high death toll of the 1918 flu was partly due to aspirin, as the aspirin doses used at times can lead to toxicity, fluid in the lungs, and in some cases contribute to secondary bacterial infections and mortality.[13] Aspirin's profitability led to fierce competition and the proliferation of aspirin brands and products, especially after the American patent held by Bayer expired in 1917.[14][15]
The popularity of aspirin declined after the market releases of paracetamol (acetaminophen) in 1956 and ibuprofen in 1969.[16] In the 1960s and 1970s, John Vane and others discovered the basic mechanism of aspirin's effects, while clinical trials and other studies from the 1960s to the 1980s established aspirin's efficacy as an anti-clotting agent that reduces the risk of clotting diseases.[17] Aspirin sales revived considerably in the last decades of the twentieth century, and remain strong in the twenty-first century, because of its widespread use as a preventive treatment for heart attacks and strokes.[18]
