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 the United States or other countries where "Bayer Aspirin" still dominated the aspirin market. Other firms began selling acetaminophen drugs, most significantly, McNeil Laboratories with liquid "Tylenol" in 1955, and "Tylenol" pills in 1958. By 1967, "Tylenol" was available without a prescription. Because it did not cause gastric irritation, acetaminophen rapidly displaced much of aspirin's sales. Another analgesic, anti-inflammatory drug was introduced in 1962: ibuprofen (sold as "Brufen" in the U.K. and "Motrin" in the U.S.). By the 1970s, aspirin had a relatively small portion of the pain reliever market, and in the 1980s sales decreased even more when ibuprofen