Aspirin
Oddly, the man who invented aspirin did not think it was of much worth or would ever be widely used. French chemist Charies Gerhardt first concocted it in 1853. He did a few quick tests with the medicine, then put it aside. For the next forty years it remained unknown to the world at large.
Finally, in 1893, a young chemist, Felix Hoffman at the Bayer Drug Company in Germany, rediscovered it. Felix’s father was suffering from severe arthritis, but none of the known drugs at the time gave him any relief. When Felix happened upon the old French formula for aspirin, he mixed up a batch and gave it to his father. To his astonishment, his father’s pain was greatly relieved.
Chemists at Bayer soon began mass-producting aspirin. First marked in 1899 as a loose powder, aspirin quickly became the world’s most prescribed drug, in 1915, the company introduced aspirin in tablet form.
阿斯匹林
說來奇怪，阿斯匹林的發明者當初并不認為這種藥物有多大價值，更沒想到它日后會被廣泛應用。1853年，法國化學家查理·杰哈德。檢測了阿司匹林幾次之后，就將其束之高閣了。在隨后的40年里，整個世界對此幾乎一無所知。
直到1893年，德國拜爾制藥公司的年經化學家菲利克斯·霍夫曼新發現了阿斯匹林。菲利克斯的父親得了嚴重的關節炎，但是當時已知的所有藥物都無法緩解她的疼痛。一個偶然的機會，菲利克斯得到了法國的阿斯匹林配方。于是他便按照這個老配方，給父親配制了一些阿斯匹林藥劑。讓她吃驚的是，父親的疼痛居然大為緩解。
拜爾公司的化學家們很快開始大批量生產阿斯匹林，并于1899年將其投入市場，當時的阿斯匹林還是粉末狀的。很快，阿斯匹林就成為世界上最常用的處方藥。1915年，拜爾公司退出了阿斯匹林片劑。
