Aspirin—Another Type of Headache it Prevents

A spirin is a trade name, owned by Bayer, for acetylsal-icylic acid (ASA). Although this name is considered generic in many countries, such as the United States, it is not in Canada. It was synthesized as early as 1853 by the French chemist, Charles Gerhardt, but the first synthesis using salicin derived from willow leaves is usually attributed to Felix Hoffmann at Bayer in Germany in 1897.1,2 There is contro-versy, however, as to whether Arthur Eichengrun actually did the work at Bayer. Its basic mechanism of action was discovered by Vane, Bergstrom, and Samuelsson in the 1970s, which resulted in their obtaining a Nobel prize in 1982. ASA, like most drugs, has several actions, but its most well characterized is that it irreversibly acetylates cyclooxy-genase-1 (COX-1) and COX-2, also known as prostaglandin H synthases 1 and 2.3 These enzymes convert arachidonic acid to prostaglandin H, which is the first step in biochemica