Aspirin was discovered by Felix Hoffman
(1868–1946) of the German pharmaceutical
company Friedrich Bayer & Co. in the late 1800s.
Hoffman used the naturally occurring chemical
compound salicylic acid, which can be found in
the willow bark used by the ancient Chinese and
the Greek physician Hippocrates, but he made it
less acidic so that it would not irritate the stomach
as much as earlier preparations. The new drug
was available by 1899 under the name “aspirin.”
However, another Bayer researcher, Heinrich
Dreser (1860–1924), also introduced a painkiller around the same time, a variant of morphine that
he claimed could relieve pain as effectively as its predecessor, although more safely. Initially,
instead of promoting aspirin, Bayer decided to focus on marketing this “heroic” drug under the
proprietary name “heroin.” Heroin was widely prescribed and quickly became popular worldwide;
it could even be purchased by mail order from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. It soon became
apparent that despite Dreser’s claims about its non-addictive quality, heroin was actually metabolized
twice as fast as morphine and was four times as potent, rendering it one of the most physically
addictive drugs ever used in medicine. Consequently Bayer discontinued the sale of heroin in 1913
and only then began to promote its less powerful analgesic, aspirin, which went on to become the
world’s most popular pain reliever.