Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. UH.
Speaker 1: For all of recorded history, Tracy, and certainly before history
Speaker 1: is being recorded, humans have been experiencing pain of one
Speaker 1: form or another. That might seem like we're leading into
Speaker 1: a very dark place, but really we're talking about ways
Speaker 1: that we've managed an alleviated pain, and today, of course,
Speaker 1: we're also talking about fairly minor ones in this case. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just as simple as like running to your local
Speaker 1: drug store or supermarket or even big box store to
Speaker 1: pick up non prescription pain relief easy peas. And we're
Speaker 1: going to talk today about specifically one of the possible
Speaker 1: pain relievers that you might reach for in such a circumstance,
Speaker 1: which is aspirin, from its natural based substance salison to
Speaker 1: the invention of its synthetic derivative form that still use.
Speaker 1: The story of aspirin is longer than people might expect,
Speaker 1: and it also has its own controversy and conflict. For example,
Speaker 1: there is one man whose name always comes up and
Speaker 1: is credited with inventing aspirin, and we're going to get
Speaker 1: to him and whether he should get credit because there
Speaker 1: have been some challenges to that. But first we need
Speaker 1: to talk about the ancient history of the medicinal base
Speaker 1: of this, as well as some of the other people
Speaker 1: who figure into the development of our knowledge about the
Speaker 1: workings of salicylic acid and its medicinal possibilities. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: just to be super clear, we're not suggesting that like
Speaker 1: every pain that a person could have can be solved
Speaker 1: with a quickly little trip to the store to pick
Speaker 1: but I got a headache, I'm going to run across
Speaker 1: the street and get some Yes. Yeah, the general day
Speaker 1: to day minor pains, the minor aches and pains, not
Speaker 1: the more serious stuff. So salison is found in the
Speaker 1: bark of the white willow tree and in winter green leaves,
Speaker 1: as well as a number of other plant life in
Speaker 1: various concentrations, and it can be converted pretty easily in
Speaker 1: a lab or in the human body into salacelic acid.
Speaker 1: And then this can get a little bit confusing because
Speaker 1: sometimes the two seem to be used almost interchangeably. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even in in my research, there were moments where people
Speaker 1: were talking about the history of this and they were
Speaker 1: pretty casually tossing them back and forth. But that's not
Speaker 1: exactly correct. Uh, And we'll talk about how even in
Speaker 1: the medical community that's been a problem at various points
Speaker 1: in time. UH. Salacelic acid is what's called beta hydroxy acid,
Speaker 1: and you have probably heard of it before because it
Speaker 1: is used to tout various skin cares all the time.
Speaker 1: And that's because beta hydroxy acids are excellent exfoliance, and
Speaker 1: unlike alpha hydroxy acids, which are also very good exfoliance,
Speaker 1: beta hydroxy acids are also really good at reducing wrinkles
Speaker 1: and improving overall skin texture, and they don't have the
Speaker 1: same tendency to cause irritation that their alpha hydroxy counterparts do.
Speaker 1: It is also anti fungal, anti infective, and it can
Speaker 1: be used to remove and heal epidermal problems like calluses
Speaker 1: and wartz. In addition to all of that, salaslic acid
Speaker 1: can also help with pain, and that's something that humans
Speaker 1: have known about for a very long time, although they
Speaker 1: didn't have that name for it and didn't understand how
Speaker 1: this pain relief was relating to salison. The first record
Speaker 1: that we have of willow bark being used as a
Speaker 1: pain remedy comes from Samaria four thousand years ago, and
Speaker 1: in addition to relieving pain, it was also used to
Speaker 1: treat inflammation and fever. And this knowledge of the extract
Speaker 1: of willow bark as a medicinal compound did not stay
Speaker 1: in Mesopotamia traveled the globe. In China, going back at
Speaker 1: least two thousand years, willow was being used to treat
Speaker 1: everything from the common cold to hemorrhages. Hippocrates documented the
Speaker 1: idea of a team made from willow bark to tame
Speaker 1: pain during childbirth right around the transition from the fifth
Speaker 1: to the fourth century BC. Several hundred years later, and
Speaker 1: other Greek physician Diascorites routinely took advantage of the anti
Speaker 1: inflammatory properties of willow bark when treating his patients. Plenty
Speaker 1: of the Elder and Galen also wrote about their uses
Speaker 1: of the extract of willow bark, and then in the
Speaker 1: seventeen sixties, Reverend Edmund Stone, who was a member of
Speaker 1: the Royal Society in addition to being an Oxford Shure vicar,
Speaker 1: conducted his own study of the potential medicinal properties of
Speaker 1: willow bark based entirely on a hunch. As an asside,
Speaker 1: you will also see him mentioned as Reverend Edward Stone.
Speaker 1: Both show up. Don't be confused. In his own writing,
Speaker 1: though he uses Edmund. But he wrote out his findings
Speaker 1: in a letter to the Royal Society titled an Account
Speaker 1: of the success of the Bark of the Willow in
Speaker 1: the Cure of eg Use, which he wrote to the
Speaker 1: Right Honorable George, Earl of Macclesfield, who was the Society's
Speaker 1: president at the time. So in this account Stone made
Speaker 1: it clear that he believed he had identified something really important,
Speaker 1: and he wrote in the opening quote, among the many
Speaker 1: useful discuss breaths which this age hath made, there are
Speaker 1: very few which better deserve the attention of the public
Speaker 1: than what I am going to lay before your lordship.
Speaker 1: And Stone goes on to describe in this letter how
Speaker 1: he accidentally tasted the willow bark of a tree and
Speaker 1: he was kind of blown over by how bitter it was,
Speaker 1: and he noticed that willows grew in the same places
Speaker 1: that egg used. Were common ailments so a us or
Speaker 1: intense episodes of fever or shivering. They've often been associated
Speaker 1: with malaria, and Stone believed that quote, many natural maladies
Speaker 1: carry their cures along with them, or that their remedies
Speaker 1: lie not far from their cures. So he knew of
Speaker 1: other bitter plants that had healing properties, including the Peruvian
Speaker 1: chinchona tree, which also contains salison in its bark. So
Speaker 1: he thought the bitter willow, growing so near to where
Speaker 1: eggus were common might similarly offer a solution to the
Speaker 1: fevers that he saw in his community. So Stone said
Speaker 1: that he looked for information on the willow being used before.
Speaker 1: He did not have access to the various accounts and
Speaker 1: records that we mentioned, because all he could find was
Speaker 1: the name of the tree and botany books that he consulted.
Speaker 1: He found nothing about its pharmaceutical possibilities. This is a
Speaker 1: way where we are very spoiled by the Internet and
Speaker 1: search engines. Yes, I often think when we're talking about
Speaker 1: historical scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, etcetera, like what would they do
Speaker 1: at the command of information that we have at our
Speaker 1: fingertips in our pockets. But so, Stone, not finding anything
Speaker 1: himself on willow ever being used in this way, set
Speaker 1: out to do some experimenting, and the Reverend Stone gathered
Speaker 1: a pound of willow bark over the course of a summer,
Speaker 1: and then he put it in a bag and he
Speaker 1: hung this bag outside of a baker's oven for three months,
Speaker 1: and while it sat there, it was exposed not to
Speaker 1: direct heat but from the indirect heat of the stove
Speaker 1: for this prolonged period of time, and over that time
Speaker 1: the contents of the bag dried out and just crumbled
Speaker 1: the powder. Once he had this powder, Stone started giving
Speaker 1: it to people in very tiny amounts, at first just
Speaker 1: twenty grains of the powder as a dose. So if
Speaker 1: there was anything toxic in this substance, the negative impact
Speaker 1: to his patients would hopefully be pretty minimal. As the
Speaker 1: people he was treating for ague appeared to tolerate this
Speaker 1: little dried powder, he started giving them additional doses, still
Speaker 1: pretty small, every four hours, and then he carefully observed
Speaker 1: the results, and his patients had some improvement, but none
Speaker 1: of them were cured of their problems. But as they
Speaker 1: still seem to have no negative reactions to this experimental treatment,
Speaker 1: Stone increased the dose, noting quote I grew bolder with it,
Speaker 1: and in a few days increase the dose to two scruples,
Speaker 1: and the eggu was soon removed. So a scruple is
Speaker 1: that initial dose. It's twenty grains, so Stone was basically
Speaker 1: doubling the dosage. Stone continued on with his study for
Speaker 1: five years, noting that over and over in fifty cases
Speaker 1: his patients eggus were either cured or in a few
Speaker 1: very severe cases, they were made much better. Stone's letter
Speaker 1: goes on to talk about the trees themselves and how
Speaker 1: abundant they are and how easy to access, and he
Speaker 1: concluded with quote, I have no other motives for publishing
Speaker 1: this valuable specific then that it may have a fair
Speaker 1: and full trial in all its variety of circumstances and situations,
Speaker 1: and that the world may reap the benefits accruing from it.
Speaker 1: So coming up, we're going to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the advances in chemistry that enabled scientists who more fully
Speaker 1: understand why willow bark helped with pain and fever. But
Speaker 1: first we are going to pause and have a little
Speaker 1: sponsor break. So while Reverend Stone's work and his success
Speaker 1: with patients came from using willow bark, he didn't really
Speaker 1: understand the chemistry involved. He knew that it was the
Speaker 1: bark or something in it, but that was it, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't until the eighteen hundreds that significant strides were
Speaker 1: made in isolating and identifying the naturally occurring agent that
Speaker 1: had these beneficial properties. In the eighteen twenties and thirties,
Speaker 1: there were a number of advancements in the scientific communities
Speaker 1: understanding of what it was about willow tree bark and
Speaker 1: other plants that offered pain relief and anti inflammatory properties
Speaker 1: to patients, and every step was building on the work
Speaker 1: of one that came before it. In eighteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: a professor of pharmacology and Munich named Johann Buchner made
Speaker 1: a big breakthrough. He was able to extract and purify
Speaker 1: the compound that was doing all of that good, and
Speaker 1: he named it salison, that is based on the Latin
Speaker 1: word for willow salax. In the following year, French pharmacist
Speaker 1: Are LaRue built on Buchner's work. He was able to
Speaker 1: isolate a pure crystalline form of salison in eighteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty eight, Raphael Peria, who was a chemist
Speaker 1: from Italy, was able to produce salasilic acid in a lab.
Speaker 1: He did this by resolving the chemical structure of salison
Speaker 1: into a sugar and salasil alcohol and then oxidiz the
Speaker 1: salsill alcohol to produce salasilic acid. The precise chemical structure
Speaker 1: of salasil alcohol was identified by two German chemists at
Speaker 1: Markburg University, ERMANN. Cloba and E. Lautman at the end
Speaker 1: of the eighteen fifties, and over the next fifteen years
Speaker 1: that teams were continued until they were able to develop
Speaker 1: a process for industrial production of salasillic acid. The Hayden
Speaker 1: Chemical Company in Germany started producing synthetic salacillic acid for
Speaker 1: pain and fever in eighteen seventy four, making them the
Speaker 1: first commercial producer. In the eighteen seventies, Thomas mclegan, the
Speaker 1: medical superintendent at Dundee Royal Infirmary in Scotland, had a
Speaker 1: lot of patients with rheumatism, and he noticed that there
Speaker 1: were similarities between the symptoms of those patients and patients
Speaker 1: with fevers that weren't related to rheumatism. The patients with
Speaker 1: general fevers had often been successfully treated with Chinchona bark, which,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned in the section on Reverend edmund Stone,
Speaker 1: contains sal wison, and so mclegan decided to test the
Speaker 1: bark extract salison out for himself, just as Stone had,
Speaker 1: although obviously there was a little more knowledge about it
Speaker 1: at this point. And in this case, the doctor first
Speaker 1: tested the substance on himself, and he approached this as
Speaker 1: a progressive test. So first he took five grains and
Speaker 1: had no negative reaction, and then he took ten grains
Speaker 1: which was similarly benign, and then he took thirty with
Speaker 1: no quote inconvenience or discomfort, and at that point he
Speaker 1: was convinced that salison was safe, so he next used
Speaker 1: it to address a rheumatic patient with a fever, high
Speaker 1: heart rate, and swollen and achy joints. This patient was
Speaker 1: given twelve grains of salison at a time, repeating the
Speaker 1: dose every three hours. After seven doses over the course
Speaker 1: of a twenty four hour period, the patient's condition had improved.
Speaker 1: The fever and heart rate were both reduced significantly, although
Speaker 1: they were still slightly above normal. Two more days of
Speaker 1: treatment reduced swelling and alleviated the patient's pain. After two
Speaker 1: more years of trial with his patients, mclegan published his
Speaker 1: results in The Lancet, and this article features eight case
Speaker 1: studies of patients with varying degrees of rheumatism, and he wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the sudden arrest of the painful symptoms and the coincident
Speaker 1: rapid fall of pulse and temperature followed so immediately on
Speaker 1: the administration of the salason that it is impossible not
Speaker 1: to attribute them to its use. Cases of acute rheumatism
Speaker 1: do sometimes improve in the most unexpected manner, but I
Speaker 1: never saw a case get well so quickly as those
Speaker 1: of which I have given details above. Maclegan went on
Speaker 1: to say that salison was the most effective treatment for rheumatism,
Speaker 1: and also that its use, dosage, and effects should be
Speaker 1: carefully documented. Interestingly, he believed that salasilic acid, which had
Speaker 1: been isolated and was favored by some medical practitioners, was
Speaker 1: not as effective or palatable a treatment as salison. Even
Speaker 1: during this time, there was some confusion about whether the
Speaker 1: terms salasin and salasilic acid were two separate things among
Speaker 1: some members of the medical community. Yeah, I did see
Speaker 1: a note in one article about mclegan that, uh, there
Speaker 1: was a doctor that wrote him an apology note because
Speaker 1: he got really mad that this guy kept confusing the
Speaker 1: two terms. But this is what brings us to a
Speaker 1: familiar name bear the firm Farban Fabric and Barm Friedrich
Speaker 1: Bear and Company started as a die company, but in
Speaker 1: the eight nineties the decision was made that the company
Speaker 1: would turn its efforts to pharmaceuticals. And this might seem
Speaker 1: like a weird gearshift to go from pigments to pharmaceuticals,
Speaker 1: but both involved chemistry and this was a new and
Speaker 1: growing field. And additionally, the company had a really good
Speaker 1: name among consumers, and so it was able to leverage
Speaker 1: that brand trust into these new ventures. So we've been
Speaker 1: talking about how practitioners like the Reverend Stone were very
Speaker 1: careful in dosage of salison and how in Stone's cases
Speaker 1: in particular, he recorded no negative side effects, but that
Speaker 1: is really not an accurate picture of the use of
Speaker 1: oral salas like acid treatment. Over time, it can cause
Speaker 1: significant issues with digestive health, including nausea, ulcers, vomiting. These
Speaker 1: are all things that can come from using salsolic acid
Speaker 1: as a medicine over time. Yeah, salason is more easily tolerated.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into why in a minute. But
Speaker 1: salasilic acid, once it's isolated, is a lot rougher on
Speaker 1: the gastro intestinal tract, and this is what leads us
Speaker 1: to the name that is most commonly associated with aspirin's origins,
Speaker 1: and that is Felix Hoffman. And Hoffman, who was born
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty eight, initially pursued a career as a
Speaker 1: pharmacist when he finished his education, but soon he realized
Speaker 1: that he actually wanted to do some more in depth
Speaker 1: science and become a chemist, and so he went back
Speaker 1: to school In he finished his graduate work with honors,
Speaker 1: and he joined Bear as a chemist in their newly
Speaker 1: established pharmaceuticals division. In Hoffman added the acetal group H
Speaker 1: three c O to salsilic acid. The result was a
Speaker 1: setle salasilic acid, which would eventually come to be known
Speaker 1: as aspirin. And this sounds like a really insightful experiment,
Speaker 1: and you could say that it is, but really Hoffman
Speaker 1: was a setulating a lot of different molecules to potentially
Speaker 1: create patentable medicines. Bears early medicines uh fantacetin and tanning
Speaker 1: were also developed using this same process in projects that
Speaker 1: were run by other chemists. The origin for Hoffman's experiment
Speaker 1: has a number of different stories to it. One version
Speaker 1: is that his boss at Bear, Arthur Irun, had tested
Speaker 1: him with figuring out a way to make salacilic acid
Speaker 1: more tolerable. The other was that his father took salasilic
Speaker 1: acid for his rheumatism and was experiencing the negative side
Speaker 1: effects that come along with using it for a prolonged period.
Speaker 1: So Hoffman was driven by a desire to help him.
Speaker 1: There's another man involved in this named Einrich Dresser, and
Speaker 1: he ran the pharmaceutical lab at Bear and it was
Speaker 1: his responsibility to test Hoffman's new substance. And Dresser was
Speaker 1: slow to work with a setle salasilic acid. He openly
Speaker 1: said that he thought it had no value and moreover,
Speaker 1: that it could be damaging to the heart. There was
Speaker 1: another acetylated compound created by Hoffman around the same time,
Speaker 1: which Dresser thought would be a lot more lucrative, and
Speaker 1: that was heroin. Hoffman had created it when he ascetilated morphine,
Speaker 1: but that was not patentable because it had been discovered
Speaker 1: by another scientist twenty five years earlier. Bear sold heroin
Speaker 1: as a pain reliever and a cough suppressant for years.
Speaker 1: Many other companies did too. We don't don't want to
Speaker 1: put that all on Bear. You have probably seen as a.
Speaker 1: I'm presuming if you're a listener that you're a history fan,
Speaker 1: you've probably seen like the old timey adverts for heroin
Speaker 1: as like a magical cure. All. But after more than
Speaker 1: a year of this aspirin compound being developed, Dresser, after
Speaker 1: getting pressure from Arthur Eiken Groun, who also uh kind
Speaker 1: of got some other people at Bear involved in the
Speaker 1: cause to kind of push for this thing to get tested,
Speaker 1: got back to Hoffman's aceetal salicilic acid and Reser first
Speaker 1: tested it on himself and then he ran an animal study,
Speaker 1: and next Bear ran tests in hospitals. Ike and Groon
Speaker 1: started this more widespread trial of the new compound, offering
Speaker 1: it to doctors to use with their patients, and the
Speaker 1: results were as hoped, This new medication successfully treated patients,
Speaker 1: particularly as a pain reliever. The full clinical trials were
Speaker 1: published in early Bayer was quick to recognize the financial
Speaker 1: potential of aspirin, and we will talk about its entry
Speaker 1: into the market after we pause for another word from
Speaker 1: a sponsor. The German patent application that Bear filed was
Speaker 1: actually rejected to other chemists in Europe had created the
Speaker 1: acetyl salicylic acid before Hoffman. Although those were in lab scenarios,
Speaker 1: and even though they submitted patents, neither of those parties
Speaker 1: had been able to create a stable version that could
Speaker 1: go to market. But Bayer went ahead and fouled a
Speaker 1: patent application in the US and that was accepted. It
Speaker 1: was written by Felix Hoffman, and it begins quote, be
Speaker 1: it known that I, Felix Hoffman, doctor of Philosophy, chemist,
Speaker 1: as signer to the Farman Forbeacon of elber Field Company
Speaker 1: of New York, residing at elber Field, Germany, have invented
Speaker 1: a new and useful improvement in the manufacture or production
Speaker 1: of aceetal salacilic acid. And Hoffman described his process in
Speaker 1: detail in that patent paper, writing quote, in producing my
Speaker 1: new compound, I can proceed as follows, without limiting myself
Speaker 1: to the particulars. Given a mixture prepared from fifty parts
Speaker 1: of salacillic acid and seventy five parts acetic anhydride is
Speaker 1: heated for about two hours at about one fifty degrees
Speaker 1: centigrade in a vessel provided with a reflux condenser. Thus
Speaker 1: a clear liquid is obtained from which, on cooling, a
Speaker 1: crystalline mass is separated, which is the acetal salacilic acid.
Speaker 1: It is freed from the acetic and hydride by pressing
Speaker 1: and then recrystallized from dry chloroform. The acid is thus
Speaker 1: obtained in the shape of glittering white and needles melting
Speaker 1: at about one thirty five degrees centigrade, which are easily
Speaker 1: soluble in benzene alcohol, glacial acetic acid, and chloroform, but
Speaker 1: difficultly soluble in cold water. On March six nine, aspirin
Speaker 1: was registered as a trademark, named by the Beer Company.
Speaker 1: The name takes the A from a seatle s p
Speaker 1: I R from the genus of plants that are alternative
Speaker 1: sources of salasin, which is spuria. The end suffix was
Speaker 1: a popular one at the time in drug names, heroin
Speaker 1: being another example. Yeah, they're at number if you look
Speaker 1: at drugs being developed at the time. The end in
Speaker 1: i am. The first aspirin that appeared in tablet form
Speaker 1: rather than a powder was in nineteen hundred, although powder
Speaker 1: aspirin continued to be offered, and these various options made
Speaker 1: it incredibly easy for doctors to prescribe, and aspirin can
Speaker 1: actually still only be acquired with a prescription. Up until
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, even in dosages that we today would easily
Speaker 1: be able to buy without one. In nine nineteen, Bayer
Speaker 1: lost its exclusive civility right to use the name aspirin
Speaker 1: through its US patent. As part of the reparations for
Speaker 1: World War One, the company had to sell its US factories.
Speaker 1: Sterling Incorporated bought the rights to olive Bear's US drug
Speaker 1: properties for three million dollars. The name didn't stay trademarked
Speaker 1: under Sterling, though, and it's been considered a generic term
Speaker 1: in the US for decades and dozens of other countries.
Speaker 1: Though it's still a trademarked name, Bear was able to
Speaker 1: get the international trademark on the name back when it
Speaker 1: bought it from Smith Climb Beacham for one billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That large price tag was not only for the trademark
Speaker 1: on the name Aspirin. That acquisition was rolled into a
Speaker 1: larger deal that included other points and other drugs as well.
Speaker 1: Smith Climb Beecham had bought out Sterling's worldwide rights, so
Speaker 1: in countries where the trademark is still held, Aspirin was
Speaker 1: once again under the Bear umbrella. Funny detail on all
Speaker 1: of this was that exactly how Hoffman's work with salasilic
Speaker 1: acid actually made the substance more tolerable to people, djusting
Speaker 1: it was still a little fuzzy a Essentially, he transformed
Speaker 1: it into a new molecule that one doesn't trigger issues
Speaker 1: in the g I tract, and two is converted back
Speaker 1: to salasilic acid by the body, so that the pain
Speaker 1: and fever relief characteristics of it still apply. But that
Speaker 1: whole process was not really understood until the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: It was only after work in the second half of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century that the potential benefits of aspirin related
Speaker 1: to heart disease and stroke came to be known. Now,
Speaker 1: how things actually played out at Bear related to the
Speaker 1: discovery of aspirin have continued to be debated. We mentioned
Speaker 1: when we first introduced that segment the two different stories
Speaker 1: about how the experiments that led to the development of
Speaker 1: aspirin actually began, but that is not the end of it.
Speaker 1: In forty seven years after Hoffman's development of aspirin and
Speaker 1: the Bear Lab, Arthur Eikenrin, while being held at theresians
Speaker 1: Dot concentration camp because he was Jewish, wrote his version
Speaker 1: of this story in this letter, which is in the
Speaker 1: Bear Archives. He said that he was the one who
Speaker 1: wanted to come up with a version of salasilic acid
Speaker 1: that would diminish these negative gastro intestinal side effects. According
Speaker 1: to his account, he wrote down all the instructions and
Speaker 1: Hoffman carried them out without really understanding any of it.
Speaker 1: Ike and Grun also published this account in nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: three years after Hoffman's death, he published that in the
Speaker 1: German periodical Pharmacy. In the nineteen nineties, Walter Sneader, pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: historian and deputy head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Speaker 1: at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, took up the cause
Speaker 1: of Ike and Grun's credit, and one of the key
Speaker 1: pieces of Sneader's argument hinges on what he believed might
Speaker 1: have been a mistranslation of one of Hoffman's eight seven notes,
Speaker 1: which may have confused verb tense a little bit. While
Speaker 1: most translations indicate that Hoffman was saying the compound was
Speaker 1: about to be tested, Sneeeder put forth the idea that
Speaker 1: actually should be translated to indicate that it already was
Speaker 1: being tested, i e. The work that Hoffman was doing
Speaker 1: was corroborative of an existing process rather than developmental. In
Speaker 1: the year anniversary of the patent and Felix Hoffman's name,
Speaker 1: Bear issued a press release addressing this ongoing debate about
Speaker 1: Hoffman and Arthur eikenrun. The release states, quote the claim
Speaker 1: that not Hoffman but his colleague, doctor Arthur ken Green
Speaker 1: is responsible for the development cannot be proven. The statement
Speaker 1: goes on to mention Walter Sneeeder and his assertion that
Speaker 1: Hoffman was working off notes by iken Groen and that
Speaker 1: I can Green should be giving credit. But Bear's stance
Speaker 1: was that Iken Groun was never Hoffman superior, that they
Speaker 1: were equals, and so it would be weird for him
Speaker 1: to have assigned him a task, and that Sneider's claims
Speaker 1: contradicted established documentation. Some of the confusion, the company claims,
Speaker 1: comes from the fact that Iken gron did have a
Speaker 1: subordinate named Hoffman, but that was Fritz Hoffman, not Felix.
Speaker 1: The Bear account points out that Arthur Iiken Grew never
Speaker 1: claimed credit for aspirin until he was in his eighties,
Speaker 1: after instances over five decades when he attributed the work
Speaker 1: to Felix Hoffman. Of course, there's a case to be
Speaker 1: made that because he was Jewish, he might never have
Speaker 1: felt that he had the agency in Germany to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. And one of the places, though
Speaker 1: where Sneader's case for Ike and Groon kind of falls apart,
Speaker 1: is also noted in that press release. So in his
Speaker 1: paper on the subject, Sneader mentions that Hoffman was never
Speaker 1: publicly credited with the invention of aspirin until nineteen thirty four.
Speaker 1: The assertion there is that this was an attempt to
Speaker 1: write the Jewish ken Groun out of the record during
Speaker 1: a period of intense anti semitism in Germany. But the
Speaker 1: problem there is that Hoffman was credited on the patent
Speaker 1: application all the way back in eight nine, as well
Speaker 1: as another paperwork that dated back to when he was
Speaker 1: doing the experiments in eighteen ninety seven. Beyer's statement concludes
Speaker 1: by noting that both ken Grud and Hoffman were researchers
Speaker 1: working for Beyer in eighteen nine seven, basically saying they
Speaker 1: were in a work for higher a situation. The statement
Speaker 1: finished with quote, it would have made no difference to
Speaker 1: either the company or the success of the aspirin brand,
Speaker 1: whether one or the other is considered the first to
Speaker 1: succeed in the acetylation of salas so like acid for
Speaker 1: the first time in a chemically pure and stable form. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's easy for a big company to go. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter who got credit, neither of them was really getting
Speaker 1: anything out of it. But of course the different people
Speaker 1: involved in this effort it matters a great deal. We
Speaker 1: have talked of many times and several times lately about
Speaker 1: how scientific discovery and credit is an issue of great
Speaker 1: debate and great passion. So um, but which of the
Speaker 1: bear scientists truly invented aspirin will likely never be conclusively settled.
Speaker 1: It's interesting reading modern more modern accounts of the whole
Speaker 1: thing that they do kind of mention that this this
Speaker 1: debate goes on, although some completely just go with the
Speaker 1: Felix Hoffman version. Kind of fascinating, but that is the
Speaker 1: invention of aspirin. Do you have some listener mail also
Speaker 1: I do. This is from our listeners Summer, and she
Speaker 1: is writing to us about our recent episode The crampuson
Speaker 1: Friend's Holiday Special four and specifically the Seven Lucky Gods.
Speaker 1: And she writes, my name is Summer, and I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast for probably four years now. I
Speaker 1: started when I needed something to do while sewing costumes
Speaker 1: for the high school drama club I run. My family
Speaker 1: and I have lived in Japan for nine and a
Speaker 1: half years now. My husband teaches at a high school
Speaker 1: on an American military base. I had to write in
Speaker 1: after listening to the seven Lucky Gods segment because I
Speaker 1: have a crazy story about them. My friend Amanda and
Speaker 1: I decided to do a seven Lucky Gods tour last
Speaker 1: January in Yokahoma. Many cities or areas have their own
Speaker 1: tours that can either be walked or driven in one day.
Speaker 1: I've been driving in Japan for many years now, so
Speaker 1: I felt confident and comfortable getting around, but there are
Speaker 1: always surprises here. There are many roads that are technically
Speaker 1: two lane, but in reality only one car can fit
Speaker 1: down them. Also, something Google Maps struggles with is knowing
Speaker 1: where the real entrance to a place is. These two
Speaker 1: things conspired against us on our quest to get all
Speaker 1: seven of our Lucky Gods. On our way to the
Speaker 1: fifth stop, we were following our Google Maps instructions that
Speaker 1: led us into a residential neighborhood with those two lane
Speaker 1: roads that only fit my minivan. We went up a
Speaker 1: hill and Google instructed us to turn at the top,
Speaker 1: which made sense because directly in front of us was
Speaker 1: a set of stairs, though I started to spect this
Speaker 1: was not going to work, as the road that I
Speaker 1: turned onto was now gravel bordered on the left by
Speaker 1: a wall and on the right by a steep twenty
Speaker 1: ft drop off with no guardrail. We drove very slowly
Speaker 1: on this road for about twenty and turned again, only
Speaker 1: to discover that we were now definitely on something that
Speaker 1: was more akin to a sidewalk. It ended about twenty
Speaker 1: in front of us in stairs, which we obviously were
Speaker 1: not going to drive down. I now had the unenviable
Speaker 1: task of backing up around two corners on a not
Speaker 1: road about seven ft wide in a minivan. Also did
Speaker 1: I mention the cliff drop off on one side and
Speaker 1: my three year old in the back seat. Thank Heavens
Speaker 1: for backup cameras and my friend Amanda, who got out
Speaker 1: and helped guide me around the corners and the telephone pools.
Speaker 1: When we finally got back on a real road, we
Speaker 1: parked the car and laughed from the sheer terror of
Speaker 1: it all. We assume the stairs in front of us
Speaker 1: were a back entrance to the shrine and we wandered
Speaker 1: on him. Sure enough it was and we were able
Speaker 1: to get our very lucky God and continue on, though
Speaker 1: this time with a little less reliance on Google. I
Speaker 1: look forward to doing another tour in Kamakura in although
Speaker 1: I will probably do it on foot. Thank you for
Speaker 1: creating such a fun and informative podcast. I always recommend
Speaker 1: your episode on Staco and the One Thousand Cranes to
Speaker 1: any friends that visit Hiroshima. That story is very close
Speaker 1: to my heart after directing a show on it, and
Speaker 1: I wept like a child at the mention of the
Speaker 1: Hiroshima Peace Park. I we I get weepy just thinking
Speaker 1: about it. See um, thank you for being my company
Speaker 1: while I saw hundreds of costumes and drive around on
Speaker 1: Adventures in Japan um summer. This is such a fun,
Speaker 1: slightly terrifying story. I agree. The backup camera is magic.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're safe. That drop off sounds very scary
Speaker 1: to me, and I uh. I hope that your visit
Speaker 1: to all the Lucky Gods granted you luck for the
Speaker 1: rest of the year, that you never found yourself in
Speaker 1: such a precarious position. Again. Uh. If you had to
Speaker 1: write to us, you can do so at History podcast
Speaker 1: at I heart radio dot com. That is a new
Speaker 1: issue email address, so take note, not the same as
Speaker 1: the old one. You can also find us everywhere on
Speaker 1: social media as missed in History, and you can visit
Speaker 1: our website missed in History dot com. If you would
Speaker 1: like to subscribe to the show, you can do that
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever it is you listen stuff you missed in hisstory
Speaker 1: Class is a production of I heart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.