Page 7 - Pharmacy History 29 Nov 2006

Book review By Sal Volatile
ASPIRIN – the story of a wonder drug
Diamid Jeffreys. Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2004
Just when you thought that every word that could ever be written about Aspirin had been written, along comes another book about this remarkable drug.
It has often been said that if Aspirin had been discovered today, it would not have been approved as a medicine under the rules and regulations by which most countries control the use of therapeutic substances, because it would be
too dangerous.
‘Aspirin has become a drug for everyman, a treatment so inexpensive and so broadly useful that it is hard to imagine what we would do without it.’
After reading this book, however, it can be seen that Aspirin fulfils the criteria for a ‘wonder drug’ and it has an exciting future as the secrets of its mode of action are unravelled.
Aspirin has become a drug for everyman, a treatment so inexpensive and so broadly useful that it is hard to imagine what we would do without it. There are few products of human ingenuity about which that can be said.
Written by an English journalist, who is not a scientist, the narrative has a free-flowing style unlike that of a text book, and as the story unfolds in an absorbing and informative way, it gives a much broader picture of
the discovery.
Although we now take it for granted, Aspirin just didn’t appear from nowhere. It’s a product of a roller-coaster ride through time, of accidental discoveries and intuitive reasoning, of astounding scientific ingenuity, personal ambition and
intense corporate rivalry between the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. Its past embraces the production and exploitation of this medicine through two world wars,
its key role in the great influenza pandemic of 1918, and its resurgence as one of the great revelations of
modern medicine because of its role in inhibiting platelet formation in the human circulatory system.
This is a book that deserves a place in your library, as well as being a good read.
volume 3 ■ no 25 ■ March 2005
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 7