History of aspirin mid-eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century pharmacists were experimenting with and prescribing a variety of chemicals related to salicylic acid, the active component of willow extract. In 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated acetyl chloride with sodium salicylate to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time; in the second half of the nineteenth century, other academic chemists established the compound's chemical structure and devised more efficient methods of synthesis. In 1897, scientists at the drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for standard common salicylate medicines, and identified a new way to synthesize it.
Erucic acid surfactants or lubricants, and can be used as a precursor to biodiesel fuel. Derivatives of erucic acid have many further uses, such as behenyl alcohol (CH(CH)OH), a pour point depressant (enabling liquids to flow at a lower temperature), and silver behenate, for use in photography. The name 'erucic' means: of or pertaining to "Eruca"; which is a genus of flowering plants in the family Brassicaceae. It is also the Latin for colewort, which today is better known as arugula. Erucic acid is produced naturally (together with other fatty acids) across a great range of green plants, but especially so in