Bayer patents aspirin

On this day in 1899, the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin,
the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical
company Friedrich Bayer & Co. 

Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid
was originally made from a chemical found in the bark of willow trees. In its
primitive form, the active ingredient, salicin, was used for centuries in folk
medicine, beginning in ancient Greece when Hippocrates used it to relieve pain
and fever. Known to doctors since the mid-19thcentury, it was used sparingly due
to its unpleasant taste and tendency to damage the stomach.

In 1897, Bayer employee Felix Hoffman found a way to create a stable form of
the drug that was easier and more pleasant to take. (Some evidence shows that
Hoffman's work was really done by a Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrun, whose
contributions were covered up during the Nazi era.) After obtaining the patent
rights, Bayer began distributing aspirin in powder form to physicians to give to
their patients one gram at a time. The brand name came from "a" for acetyl,
"spir" from the spirea plant (a source of salicin) and the suffix "in," commonly
used for medications. It quickly became the number-one drug worldwide.

Aspirin was made available in tablet form and without a prescription in 1915.
Two years later, when Bayer's patent expired during the First World War, the
company lost the trademark rights to aspirin in various countries. After the
United States entered the war against Germany in April 1917, the Alien Property
Custodian, a government agency that administers foreign property, seized Bayer's
U.S. assets. Two years later, the Bayer company name and trademarks for the
United States and Canada were auctioned off and purchased by Sterling Products
Company, later Sterling Winthrop, for $5.3 million.

Bayer became part of IG Farben, the conglomerate of German chemical
industries that formed the financial heart of the Nazi regime. After World War
II, the Allies split apart IG Farben, and Bayer again emerged as an individual
company. Its purchase of Miles Laboratories in 1978 gave it a product line
including Alka-Seltzer and Flintstones and One-A-Day Vitamins. In 1994, Bayer
bought Sterling Winthrop's over-the-counter business, gaining back rights to the
Bayer name and logo and allowing the company once again to profit from American
sales of its most famous product.