A Century of Aspirin

From ancient to modern times, aspirin’s roles continue to change. This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health. The ancient s knew that willow bark extracts had the ability to lower fever. In 1827 the key ingredient from willow bark was isolated and called salicin. Over the next seventy years researchers learned to make salicylic acid from salicin and in 1899 the world was introduced to acetylsalicylic acid, better known as aspirin.

In the last hundred years, aspirin’s mark on medicine had been profound. It lowers fever, soothes and decreases inflammation from many forms of arthritis, and is a pain killer of major impact. We’ve also learned, however, that it can irritate the intestinal tract of some people and can occasionally cause other problems in some children suffering from the flu or chicken pox.

But just as some people have moved away from aspirin for pain or fever relief, others are migrating toward it for entirely different reasons. In the last few decades it’s become apparent that low-dose aspirin therapy reduces the incidence of stroke and heart attack. More recently, studies suggested that aspirin may cut the death rate from colon cancer as well. And all the while, researchers have been learning more about why aspirin does what it does.

Commercial aspirin is now in its second century of service to mankind. And it promises to be its most exciting, as uses the next time around could well be very different from those in the past. For a copy of this script, access our web site, speakingofhealth.com.

Speaking of Health, I’m Dr. Steven Andrew Davis for CBS News.