Take Two, But Don't Take Them for Granted

Diarmuid Jeffreys. Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug. New York: Bloomsbury , 2004. x + 335 pp. $24.95

Reviewed by Raymond J. Giguere

The story of aspirin spans a significant range of human experience. In this engaging text, Diarmuid Jeffreys weaves known fact and speculative fiction to trace the history of this long-serving drug from the earliest recorded medicinal uses of its related natural product, salicylic acid, to its present-day applications and our understanding of its mode of molecular action. He has carefully researched the lives of the scientists, businessmen, and others who were central to the complex story of how this substance became one of the most widely used drugs in the world.

Jeffreys’s chronological narrative focuses on the period since aspirin’s synthesis by German chemists at Bayer in 1899. His colorful descriptions of key developments convincingly immerse the reader in the characters and context of the time. B efore World War I the international growth in aspirin production and sales led to bitter patent litigation in the United Kingdom . In the wake of the war Bayer lost its patent for aspirin, and the rights to the Bayer name in the United States were auctioned by the U.S. government. (Bayer did not reclaim its own name in the United States until 1994.) The influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 encouraged the worldwide acceptance of aspirin. Although the drug only subdued some of the flu’s symptoms, it was considered the best potential remedy for this terrible scourge. Rupert Blue, then U.S. surgeon general, at a loss for a truly effective course of action, recommended Americans to “stay in bed, eat as well as you can to keep your strength up, and take aspirin” (p. 136). In the next decade the drug was widely and successfully sold. Its success played a significant role in the rise of German industrial cartel, IG Farben, which helped bankroll the emerging Nazi Germany.

Aspirin is generally well written and documented, but at times tangential topics are explored in too much detail; a more concise account would have been welcome. Despite this, Jeffreys’s book will capture the attention of a wide audience, especially historians and social scientists, as well as natural scientists interested in the history of chemistry and related fields. The text offers a complex synthesis of many facets of aspirin’s fascinating economic, historic, and scientific legacy. It provides a satisfying cultural context to comprehend the forces that have propelled this organic molecule into our everyday lives and encourages us to embrace its ongoing promise and potential.