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 was firmly committed to the standards of ethical drugs, as opposed to patent medicines. "Ethical drugs" were drugs that could be obtained only through a pharmacist, usually with a doctor's prescription. Advertising drugs directly to consumers was considered unethical and strongly opposed by many medical organizations; that was the domain of patent medicines. Therefore, Bayer was limited to marketing Aspirin directly to doctors. When production of Aspirin began in 1899, Bayer sent out small packets of the drug to doctors, pharmacists and hospitals, advising them of Aspirin's uses and encouraging them to publish about the drug's effects and effectiveness. As