Timeline

The story of aspirin is as remarkable and wide ranging as its number of potential uses

From origins as a herbal folk medicine – through its extended life as a front line pain killer – and now to its potential applications as a life saving preventive medicine, aspirin’s role is constantly changing. All these developments have come from the efforts of thousands of clinicians and scientists from across the world.
Major historical events
Timeline1

2000+ BCE

Assyrians document the use of willow leaves for rheumatic inflammation on stone tablets during the Sumerian period

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1550 BCE

the Ebers Papyrus an Egyptian medical text recommended an infusion of dry myrtle leaves for rheumatic and back pain
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c400 BCE

Hippocrates of Kos uses willow bark for fever and pain
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1763

Reverend Edward Stone informs the Royal Society about his success with willow bark to treat fever
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1876

Dr Thomas MacLagan publishes his work using salicin in acute rheumatism
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1897

Dr Felix Hoffmann produces pure stable acetylsalicylic acid from salicylic acid and acetic anhydride
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1853

Salicylic acid made from salicin by French scientists but it is found to irritate the gut.
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1893

German scientists find that adding an acetyl group to salicylic acid reduces its irritant properties.
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1897

In Germany, Bayer’s Felix Hoffmann develops and patents a process for synthesising acetyl salicylic acid or aspirin. First clinical trials begin.
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1971

British Pharmacologist, Sir John Vane discovers that acetylsalicylic acid inhibits the production of pain- intensifying prostaglandins
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1974

Professor Elwood, Archibald Cochrane and their colleagues publish the first RCT using aspirin for secondary CVD prevention
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1974

International Aspirin Foundation founded by Nick Henderson FIPR HonFRCVS
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1985

Professor Carlo Patrono shows that aspirin at low doses permanently inhibits thromboxane
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1988

Physicians Health Study; Nurse’s Health Study and the Women’s Health Study showed positive effects of aspirin in the primary prevention of disease
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1988

Cardiologists start using aspirin as immediate standard practice for suspected MI.
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1988

First study to show a link between aspirin and colorectal cancer prevention

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1997

Aspirin is 100 years old
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2002

Antithrombotic Trialists’ Collaboration publish a meta-analysis confirming aspirin’s role in preventing death, MI and stroke in high risk patients.
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2015

US Preventative Services Task Force recommends aspirin for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer

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2018

Primary prevention trials ARRIVE, ASCEND, ASPREE, seAFOod AspECT published
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2019

International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics guidelines recommend that women at high risk of pre-eclampsia take low-dose aspirin prophylaxis

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2020

aspirin is still one of the best options for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (The Lancet)

Sources

  • Jack DB One hundred years of aspirin. The Lancet 1997:350: 437-39
  • Elwood P 2017 Aspirin yesterday, aspirin today, aspirin tomorrow: a history of prophylactic aspirin. International Aspirin Foundation.
  • Goldberg DR Aspirin: Turn-of-the century miracle drug accessed 12/05/2019 @ https://wwwsciencehistory.org/distillations/aspirin-turn-of-the-centuary-miracle-drug
  • Schrör K 2016 Acetylsalicylic acid. Wiley
  • Chiarito M, Sanz-Sánchez J, Cannata F et al monotherapy with P2Y12 inhibitor or aspirin for secondary prevention in patients with established atherosclerosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet 2020 395 10235 14487-1495