> Aspirin, in the form of leaves from the willow tree, has been used for its health effects for at least 2,400 years.[5] In 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time.[6]
In the second half of the nineteenth century, other chemists established the chemical structure and came up with more efficient methods to make it. In 1897, scientists at Bayer began studying acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for common salicylate medicines.[6]:69–75 By 1899, Bayer had named the drug Aspirin …