Aspirin for its health effects for at least 2,400 years. In 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated the medicine sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time. For the next fifty years, other chemists established the chemical structure and came up with more efficient methods to make it. In 1897, scientists at the Bayer company began studying acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement medication for common salicylate medicines. By 1899, Bayer had named it "Aspirin" and sold it around the world. Aspirin's popularity grew over the first half of the twentieth century leading to competition between
Chorismic acid Chorismic acid Chorismic acid, more commonly known as its anionic form chorismate, is an important biochemical intermediate in plants and microorganisms. It is a precursor for: The name chorismic acid derives from a classical Greek word, "χωρίζω" meaning "to separate", because the compound plays a role as a branch-point in aromatic amino acid biosynthesis. Shikimate → shikimate-3-phosphate → 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate (5-O-(1-carboxyvinyl)-3-phosphoshikimate) Chorismate synthase is an enzyme that catalyzes the final chemical reaction 5-O-(1-carboxyvinyl)-3-phosphoshikimate → chorismate + phosphate. Chorismate is transformed into "para"-aminobenzoic acid by the enzymes 4-amino-4-deoxychorismate synthase and 4-amino-4-deoxychorismate lyase. Chorismate lyase is an enzyme that transforms chorismate into 4-hydroxybenzoate