Aspirin: The Story of a Wonder Drug
by Diarmuid Jeffreys
Bloomsbury $220
Diarmuid Jeffreys follows a little white pill from ancient Egypt to a British parson, to a German dye factory, before explaining its coming of age in the greatest disaster of the 20th century and its renaissance as a cardiac drug.
He starts with the discovery of an Egyptian papyrus by an American adventurer. The papyrus recommended a concoction containing willow bark for treatment of fever. Having been part of the ancient world's medicine chest, willow bark as a fever treatment almost disappeared from view (it's mentioned in sixth-century medical texts in China) only to resurface in the English countryside when an 18th-century parson put a piece of willow bark in his mouth and noticed it tasted like quinine, the only known (and very expensive) treatment for malaria or 'the ague'.
This set in motion a long line of inquiry and testing. The following century's industrial revolution increased the need - burgeoning industrial towns and cities were breeding grounds for epidemics - and potential for large-scale production of a fever drug. In the late 19th century, willow bark's active ingredient, salicylic acid, was much in demand.