Eleven things you (perhaps) didn’t know about Aspirin
1. Aspirin in world literature
On November 25, 1918, Nobel prizewinner in literature Thomas Mann wrote the following succinct entry in his diary: “For supper, at K.'s bed, I drank punch, which warmed my feet, and took Aspirin®. Recovery.” A more laconic description of the tablet’s effects has yet to be written. Crime author Raymond Chandler and thriller writer Frederick Forsyth also gave the white tablets supporting roles in their stories.
2. Aspirin in paper bags
In the early years, Bayer sold Aspirin to pharmacies as a fine, white powder in bottles. The pharmacists in turn filled 500-milligram portions of the product into paper bags which they then sold to the customers. Since 1904, Aspirin has been marketed in tablet form to ensure a uniform dose strength – one of the first drug products in the world to be marketed as standard in this consistently high-quality form. The Bayer Cross is also embossed on the tablet to prevent counterfeiting.
3. The high-handedness of the discoverer
As a chemist in the service of Bayer, Dr. Felix Hoffmann was a conscientious man not given to high-handed behavior. With one exception: as his superiors were not immediately impressed by his new active ingredient, he sent acetylsalicylic acid to a nursing home in Halle on the Saale, where a doctor of his acquaintance tested it on his patients. The reports of his positive experiences with the substance played an important role in its rapid market launch. Said senior physician Kurt Wittauer, “Thanks to my favorable experiences, the factory has after long hesitation now declared itself willing to market Aspirin and I can only hope that the difficult production procedure will not make necessary too high a price so that this, in my opinion, valuable substance can enter general use.“
4. The father of the discoverer
Felix Hoffmann’s discovery also helped his father who had suffered considerable pain from rheumatoid arthritis for many years. His doctors therefore prescribed him sodium salicylate. However, this substance based on salicylic acid had such a bitter taste that the patient was sick every time he took it. With the discovery of acetylsalicylic acid, Felix Hoffmann eliminated this side effect and thus helped his father find relief.
5. The retired discoverer
Although Felix Hoffmann become world-famous as the “father” of Aspirin, he disappeared completely from the public eye on retiring in 1928. He wrote no books and held no lectures – instead, he emigrated to Switzerland where he lived in seclusion and devoted himself to art history until his death in 1946.
6. The Aspirin inspiration
That Aspirin worked was apparent from the beginning. But how it worked would remain one of the great secrets of medicine for three-quarters of a century. It was not until 1971 that British scientist Professor Sir John R. Vane published his discovery that the active ingredient of Aspirin inhibits the body’s production of prostaglandins (pain messenger substances). Eleven years later, he received the Nobel Prize in recognition of this achievement. Incidentally, the idea came to him not at home in the laboratory but over the weekend at home as he was writing an article. He started on the experiments that would take him to his goal on the very next Monday.
7. Aspirin in space
Aspirin marched triumphantly not only over the entire globe but also 400,000 kilometers away, as part of the on-board medicine kit on all of the Apollo rockets that NASA sent to the moon – both the orbital lunar flights in 1968/69 and the seven moon landings from 1969 to 1972 (Apollo 11 to Apollo 17). Dr. Charles Berry, then Medical Director of the U.S. Space Agency NASA, said, “There is no doubt that Aspirin will be used for ever as a standard remedy.”
8. Aspirin as a currency
The tablet has been used not only as a painkiller but also as a form of currency. This occurred in the times of hyperinflation in South America last century, when money became next to worthless. According to reports, it was standard practice at that time to hand out a few tablets of the analgesic, which was commonly used on the continent, as change as it held its value considerably better than the actual currency.
9. Aspirin in vases
A little-known trick to make cut flowers last longer is to add Aspirin to their water. This stops them from wilting so quickly. The effect is attributable to salicylic acid, which as a messenger substance plays an important role in plants’ defense systems.
10. Aspirin in numbers
Melting point of acetylsalicylic acid: 135 °C * Entry in Guinness Book of Records as highest-selling drug product: 1950 * Number of scientific publications about Aspirin per year: 3,500 (approx.) * Number of Aspirin tablets manufactured each year (converted into 50 mg tablets): 100 billion *
11. Aspirin as an example of the spirit of invention
The drug of the century has frequently been praised as a special example of German ingenuity: “Germany is where the first car was built, the computer was invented and Aspirin was developed.” (Chancellor Angela Merkel in her government address on November 30, 2005). “German successes span the entire breadth of human life. From philosophy, music and literature to the discovery of X-rays and the mass production of Aspirin.” (Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of the state visit by the German Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in 1986).
