Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Commentary

Vol. 2 No. 2 (1996)

Physicians, Fads, and Pharmaceuticals: A History of Aspirin

  • Anne Adina Judith Andermann, B.Sc., M.Phil. Cantab
DOI
https://doi.org/10.26443/mjm.v2i2.562
Submitted
November 7, 2020
Published
2020-12-01

Abstract

Aspirin is a product of the late-nineteenth-century laboratory, pharmaceutical industry, and medical community. The prevailing scientific techniques, industrial approaches, and medical beliefs were instrumental in the development, promotion and reception of the drug. As a result, the present account does not extend further back than a few decades prior to the release of aspirin from the laboratories of Farbenfabriken vormals Friedrich Bayer & Co. in 1899. In contrast, much of the current literature on aspirin (2,3,4) attempts to trace the compound back to antiquity through the Ebers papyrus, the Hippocratic writings, and the works of Galen. Such histories tell a simple, linear tale of the numerous "discoveries" proposed to have led to the use of certain salicylate-containing plants, such as willow bark and wintergreen, or salicylate-related compounds, including salicilin and salicylic acid, as cures for a variety of ailments. Indeed, according to Mann and Plummer: Both [salicilin and salicylic acid] attacked fever and pain, and their partisans advocated the salicylates' use as antiseptics, mouthwashes, and water preservatives for ocean voyages; one important chemist further suggested (erroneously) that sodium salicylate, a chemical relative, would successfully treat scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, syphilis, cholera, rabies and anthrax (5). However, it is difficult to establish what effect, if any, these examples of the "historical" uses of "proto-aspirin" had on the impetus for and modes of developing and using the actual drug called aspirin. As a matter of course, aspirin is usually described as the natural descendant from these salicylate forefathers. However, the history of aspirin is not as straightforward a tale as conventional histories suggest, but rather is a complex narrative of the people and circumstances involved in transforming a simple chemical compound into a popular pharmaceutical product that has remained one of the most widely consumed drugs for almost a century.

References

  1. Latour B. "The Costly Ghastly Kitchen" in Cunningham A. and Williams P., eds., The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1992.
  2. Rainsford KD. Aspirin and the Salicylates. London: Butterworths; 1984.
  3. Vane JR, Botting RM. Aspirin and other Salicylates. London: Chapman and Hall Medical Publishers; 1992.
  4. Mann J. Murder, Magic and Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1992.
  5. Mann CC, Plummer ML. The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press; 1991.
  6. Verg E, Plumpe G, Schultheis H. Meilensteine: The official Bayer publication in commemoration of the centenary of aspirin's release; 1989.
  7. McTavish J. What's in a name? Aspirin and the American Medical Association. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 61: 364-365; 1987.
  8. Dr. Pope of the Leicester Infirmary and Fever House. The Lancet, April 13, 1889, p. 728.
  9. The Lancet, July 22, 1899, p. 255.
  10. The Lancet, Oct. 14, 1899, p. 999.
  11. The Lancet, Aug. 5, 1899, p. 387.
  12. Text-book of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. W. Hale White, ed. Edinburgh: Young J. Pentland; 1901.
  13. The British Medical Association's Annual Museum Exhibit on Drugs. British Medical Journal, Aug. 5, 1899, p. 387.
  14. Epitomes of the British Medical Journal, January to April, 1899.
  15. Dr. Mackey. The Lancet, Nov. 7, 1903, p. 1293.
  16. Dr. A. H. Smith. British Medical Journal, Jan. 27, 1900, p. 210c.
  17. The Lancet, July 29, 1899, p. 318.
  18. Dreser H. Archiv fur die Gesamte Physiologie 76: 306-18; 1899 (transl.) in John C. Krantz, Historical Medical Classics Involving New Drugs. Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Co.; 1974.
  19. British Medical Journal, October 21, 1899, p. 68.
  20. British Medical Journal, July 1, 1899, p. 34c.
  21. British Medical Journal, December 9, 1899; p. 96.
  22. Marshall CR. A Textbook of Materia Medica. London: J. & A. Churchill, 1905.
  23. A System of Practical Therapeutics, 2nd ed. H.A. Hare, ed. London: Williams & Noorgate; 1905.
  24. Phillips CD. Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics. N.Y.: Longmans, Green & Co.; 1904.
  25. The Lancet, April 4, 1903; p. 984.
  26. Liebenau JM. Medical Science and Medical Industry, 1890-1929. Ph.D. Dissertation in History and

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.