Picric acid converted it to acetylsalicylic acid, i.e., aspirin, to keep it from the Allies. See Great Phenol Plot. At the time, phenol was obtained from coal as a co-product of coke ovens and the manufacture of gas for gas lighting. Laclede Gas reports being asked to expand production of phenol (and toluene) to support the war effort. Both Monsanto and Dow Chemical undertook manufacture of synthetic phenol in 1915. Dow was the leading producer. Dow describes picric acid as “the main battlefield explosive used by the French. Large amounts [of phenol] also went to Japan, where it was made into picric
Rosmarinic acid those used in the formation of chlorogenic and caffeoylshikimic acids. In plants, rosmarinic acid is supposed to act as a preformed constitutively accumulated defense compound. Rosmarinic acid is a potential anxiolytic as it acts as a GABA transaminase inhibitor, more specifically on 4-aminobutyrate transaminase. Rosmarinic acid also inhibits the expression of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase via its cyclooxygenase-inhibiting properties. Senescent leaves of "Heliotropium foertherianum" (Boraginaceae) also known as octopus bush, a plant used in many Pacific islands as a traditional medicine to treat ciguatera fish poisoning, contain rosmarinic acid and derivatives. Rosmarinic acid may remove the ciguatoxins from their sites of action.