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
Picric acid Picric acid Picric acid is an organic compound with the formula (ON)CHOH. Its IUPAC name is 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP). The name "picric" comes from the Greek πικρός ("pikros"), meaning "bitter", reflecting its bitter taste. It is one of the most acidic phenols. Like other highly nitrated organic compounds, picric acid is an explosive, hence its primary use. It has also been used in medicine (antiseptic, burn treatments) and dyes. Picric acid was probably first mentioned in the alchemical writings of Johann Rudolf Glauber. Initially, it was made by nitrating substances such as animal horn, silk, indigo, and natural resin, the synthesis