Bayer patented aspirin on this day in 1899 and began marketing it the same year. Scientists at the German company had been studying acetylsalicylic acid as a pain reliever, fever reducer and anti-inflammatory agent for a couple of years. Felix Hoffman, a Bayer employee, was the first to produce the drug in a stable form as a tablet—or, at least, that was the official story.
Aspirin was a brand name, but its trademark was lost or sold in much of the world and it remains a generic in many countries. This includes the United States, where Bayer hadn’t used the name of its own product correctly for years.
As to who stabilized the drug, that’s not entirely clear. Hoffman claimed to be the inventor in 1934, but a 1944 letter written by a former Bayer employee named Arthur Eichengrün claimed to have planned and directed the synthesis of aspirin. He wrote the letter from Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he was imprisoned for being Jewish.
Since then, researchers have argued that the 1934 claim may have been falsified by the Nazis to erase Eichengrün’s role. There’s one thing we do know Hoffman invented: heroin.
You can learn more about the history of aspirin at the Pharmaceutical Journal website.
