Daily Survival Guide

Today's Hero
_________________________________


On this day in 1897, Bayer chemist Felix Hoffmann produced the first 100 percent chemically pure form of acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin. Salicylic acid is found naturally in the bark of the willow tree and has been used to ease pain for thousands of years, but in its pure form it causes severe stomach and mouth irritation. Although others had experimented with acetylating salicylic acid to reduce the side effects, Hoffmann was the first to reliably produce a pure and stable form; his procedure was used by Bayer to create the "wonder drug" aspirin, which it trademarked in 1899. Although aspirin was an instant success, Hoffmann lived in relative obscurity in Switzerland until his death in 1946, and it was only then that his role in the process was credited.