Hoffmann, We Have a Problem

A long time ago, in 1897 to be exact about things, the German corporation Bayer was looking for a better pain reliever. Two of their scientists, Arthur Eichengrün and Felix Hoffmann, found themselves on the task. Arthur Eichengrün was a chemist, and Felix Hoffmann, who worked under Eichengrün, was a pharmacist.

Menu Observing and Gathering Information Proposing a Hypothesis Testing the Hypothesis Lagniappes Conclusion and Communication New Developments

A painkiller ad from the 1800s.

This is where you're going to use your imagination. Pretend that you are working at Bayer with Eichengrün and Hoffmann back in 1897. How would you go about finding a better pain reliever?

The first thing you'd have to do is to figure out just what it is that you are trying to do. This one is easy in this case. You're trying to make an effective pain reliever that doesn't have harmful side effects.

Okay, that was simple enough. The next thing you might want to do is take stock of what people already know about relieving pain. What medicines would be available at this time? How did they work? What were their drawbacks?