History of aspirin Hermann Hildebrandt). In 1894, the young chemist Felix Hoffmann joined the pharmaceutical group. Dreser, Eichengrün and Hoffmann would be the key figures in the development of acetylsalicylic acid as the drug Aspirin (though their respective roles have been the subject of some contention). In 1897, Hoffmann started working to find a less irritating substitute for salicylic acid. It is generally accepted that he turned to this idea because his father was suffering the side effects of taking sodium salicylate for rheumatism. In 1853, Charles Frédéric Gerhardt had published the first methods to prepare acetylsalicylic acid. In the course of his
A Is for Acid A Is for Acid A Is for Acid is a 2002 British television film based on the life of the serial killer John George Haigh, known as the Acid Bath Murderer, because he dissolved the bodies of six people in sulphuric acid. Haigh, hanged in 1949 for his crimes, had wrongly believed that murder could not be proven without the presence of a body. Starring Martin Clunes in the lead role, the film was shot in Scarborough, chosen because its appearance was believed similar to that of London when Haigh lived there during the 1940s. The film was produced by