History of aspirin other studies from the 1960s to the 1980s established aspirin's efficacy as an anti-clotting agent that reduces the risk of clotting diseases. Aspirin sales revived considerably in the last decades of the twentieth century, and remain strong in the twenty-first with widespread use as a preventive treatment for heart attacks and strokes. Medicines derived from willow trees and other salicylate-rich plants have been part of pharmacopoeias at least dating back to ancient Sumer. The Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text from ca. 1543 BCE, mentions use of willow and myrtle (another salicylate-rich plant) to treat fever and pain. Willow bark
History of aspirin "Bayer Aspirin" made up only a small fraction of the British aspirin market because of competition from "Aspro", "Disprin" (a soluble aspirin drug) and other brands. Bayer Ltd began searching for new pain relievers to compete more effectively. After several moderately successful compound drugs that mainly utilized aspirin ("Anadin" and "Excedrin"), Bayer Ltd's manager Laurie Spalton ordered an investigation of a substance that scientists at Yale had, in 1946, found to be the metabolically active derivative of acetanilide: acetaminophen. After clinical trials, Bayer Ltd brought acetaminophen to market as "Panadol" in 1956. However, Sterling Products did not market "Panadol" in