Aspirin : The Extraordinary Story of a Wonder Drug

_______________ 'An enthralling read ... fascinating ... the author pieces the jigsaw together in thriller style' - David O'Donoghue, Sunday Business Post 'This biography of aspirin has some cracking factoids' - Scotland on Sunday 'He tells a story which blends politics, big business, social and medical history, greed, incredible dedication and human folly in a lively page-turner read' - Irish Times _______________ The fascinating and dramatic story of aspirin, the wonderdrug which changed the world Throughout the world we pop more than 200 billion of these little white pills every year. Aspirin is effective not only against everyday ailments, such as headaches and fever, but also as a preventative treatment for heart attacks, strokes, and even some types of cancers. Add to this its beneficiary role in a host of other conditions from Alzheimer's to gum disease, and you have a medicine of unparalleled importance to humanity, not to mention big business. Yet until 1971 we did not even know how Aspirin worked. In this fascinating and informative book Diarmuid Jeffreys follows the surprising and dramatic story of the drug from its origins in ancient Egypt, through its industrial development at the end of the nineteenth century and its key role in the great flu pandemic of 1918 to its subsequent exploitation by the pharmaceutical conglomerates. "The story of aspirin goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, although how the drug works was discovered only in the 1970s. Its past embraces wars, epidemics, espionage, an Oxfordshire vicar, a forgotten Jewish scientist, the Industrial Revolution, a common tree, the Treaty of Versailles, the world's most powerful pharmaceutical companies, Auschwitz, a mercurial advertising genius, and much more. Bringing alive a compelling cast of characters in a dazzling journey across centuries, Diarmuid Jeffreys reveals how chance and design brought the drug into being as we know it at the end of the nineteenth century, and how intrigue, greed, and ambition combined to make aspirin one of the most commercially successful products of all time."--Jacket