Aspirin: The Unique Drug

Although drugs have been used by humans since earliest times, few people realize how important an ef-fect they have had on the history of the human race. High on the list among drugs that have exerted a profound effect are the salicylates of which the most widely used product, aspirin, is the best known. It, as well as all the other salicylates, are direct descendants of willow bark used by Hippocrates 2,300 years ago for the relief of pain and fever. The active principle of this bark, known as sali-cin, occurs in many shrubs and trees, but most abundantly in the bark of the willow (Salix). Theophrastus, a student and friend of Aristotle who inherited his teacher's library and botanical garden, listed the willow and plants of the genus Spiraea and other members of the Rosaceae (or rose) family that had these proper-ties. They were also listed by Diodes in his Greek Herbal. Dioscorides, Pliny and Elder, and Galen's pharma-copoeia all mentioned and recom¬ mended willow bark as an effective agent. Knowledge of the value of these plants became worldwide and known to primitive societies. North American Indians were aware of and used trailing arbutus, a member of the heath family (or Ericaceae) for the treatment of rheumatism. A phy¬ sician in rural South Africa wrote a letter to the Lancet in 1876 in which he described the use of willow bark by the then primitive society of Hotten¬ tots. He had examined a woman who, in his words, was... in the cruel bonds of as fierce an at¬ tack of rheumatic fever as I ever saw... I prescribed the usual alkaline mixture, with calomel and Dover's powder at bedtime, and rode away. Some two months after, my former patient entered my surgery, looking remarkably well, and I very natu¬ rally congratulated myself and her that she had recovered so completely. I was quite taken aback when she bluntly told me that my physic hadn't helped her a bit. On inquiring what had helped her, she said that an old Hottentot shepherd had made her a decoction of the shoots of the willows which grew on the banks of the river, and after taking this for a few days she began to get better. In spite of its known efficacy, little in¬ terest seems to have been developed in salicin. It was often confused with Peruvian bark since the quinine pro¬ duced from the latter (the cinchona tree) also had the ability to lower fe¬ ver