Aspirin turned a tree-bark remedy into a global tablet.
Indigenous peoples used willow bark for pain relief for centuries. Felix Hoffmann, a Bayer chemist, synthesized acetylsalicylic acid in 1897 as a stable, more effective form. Bayer named it Aspirin, and won a patent for it in the United States after Germany refused one. Germany lost the Aspirin trademark as a war reparation in 1919.
Aspirin on Brandseum