[The saga of aspirin: centuries-old ancestors of an old lady who doesn't deserve to die].
Where do analgics come from? If their ancestors are many centuries old, we observe that the four main drugs of modern analgesia, morphine (1816), codeine (1832), paracetamol (1893) and aspirin (1897) were discovered during the 19th century. And through what 'sagas'! The first known prescriptions, written on earthenware shelves in Mesopotamia 3 centuries BC, already mentioned medications derived from willow to cure headaches. The Greeks dedicated to Asclepios, god of therapeutics, a statue carved in a willow trunk as a symbol! Thus, before becoming a drug, aspirin was born from the willow, which grows with its feet in water 'without suffering', as the ancestors put it. But before it walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong in 1969, the discovery of aspirin as a drug was the consequence of the filial love of a young researcher, Felix Hoffmann, who wanted to decrease the resistant pain of his rheumatic old father.
Queneau
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Service de Médecine Interne, CHU Hôpital de Bellevue, 42055 Saint-Etienne, France.
D001241:Aspirin / Q000266:history* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D010146:Pain / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000266:history; D010946:Plants, Medicinal
D001241:Aspirin