Natural product to modern discovery of their active ingredients and eventually to the development of new drugs. A large number of currently prescribed drugs have been either directly derived from or inspired by natural products. A few representative examples are listed below. Some of the oldest natural product based drugs are analgesics. The bark of the willow tree has been known from antiquity to have pain relieving properties. This is due to presence of the natural product salicin which in turn may be hydrolyzed into salicylic acid. A synthetic derivative acetylsalicylic acid better known as aspirin is a widely used pain reliever.
Hippocrates the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos; other biographical information, however, is likely to be untrue. Soranus of Ephesus, a 2nd-century Greek physician, was Hippocrates' first biographer and is the source of most personal information about him. Later biographies are in the "Suda" of the 10th century AD, and in the works of John Tzetzes, Aristotle's "Politics", which date from the 4th century BC. Soranus wrote that Hippocrates' father was Heraclides, a physician, and his mother was Praxitela, daughter of Tizane. The two sons of Hippocrates, Thessalus and Draco, and his son-in-law, Polybus, were his students. According