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 became available without prescription. Also in the early 1980s, several studies suggested a link between children's consumption of aspirin and Reye's syndrome, a potentially fatal disease. By 1986, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required warning labels on all aspirin, further suppressing sales. The makers of "Tylenol" also filed a lawsuit against "Anacin" aspirin maker American Home Products, claiming that the failure to add warning labels before 1986 had unfairly held back "Tylenol" sales, though this suit was eventually dismissed. The mechanism of aspirin's analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic properties was unknown through the drug's heyday in the early- to mid-twentieth