Today in IP

Today in IP: On this day in 1900 patent #644,077 was issued to Felix Hoffmann for perhaps the most widely used over the counter medication used today - aspirin. How widely used is aspirin? It is estimated that over 100 billion tablets are manufactured each year, plenty for each person living today. Although Felix Hoffmann was a brilliant chemist, graduating magna cum laude at each academic level, the useful properties of the active ingredient of aspirin, salicylic acid, was already known. In fact Hippocrates (440-377 B.C.) was known to prescribed the bark and leaves of the willow tree, rich in salicylic acid, to reduce pain and fever. However during the Middle Ages the usefulness of the willow tree was forgotten and replaced by more modern methods such as leeches. About 1760 a clergyman by the name of Edward Stone came onto the scene. He suffered from a variety of sickness such as fevers and aches in his joints. For some unknown reason he found that he could get relief by chewing the bark of a willow tree. He then conducted experiments on others and found that they also experienced similar benefits. Yet in spite of the benefits only a few people could handle the stomach irritation from the salicylic acid. It remained that way for 140 years until Felix Hoffmann arrived. Felix Hoffmann synthesized a version of salicylic acid that did not irritate the stomach. That synthesized version became known as aspirin.

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