March 6, 1899, 125 years ago: Aspirin -- acetylsalicylic acid -- is registered as a trademark by Bayer AG (Aktiengesellschaft, meaning "joint stock company") in Elberfeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; and is also patented by one of its research chemists, Felix Hoffmann.
Born in 1866 in Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Hoffmann joined Bayer in 1894, and first synthesized aspirin in 1897. Once several large-scale studies to investigate the substance's efficacy and tolerability had been completed, it was found to be an analgesic, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory substance. It has been marketed as a pain reliever, especially as a headache medicine, ever since.
Hoffmann also synthesized diamorphine, although he was not the first to do so. But he was the first to market it as a medicine under its more familiar name: Heroin, because he thought its pain-relief ability was "heroic." It was banned in America in 1914, and became a drug of choice for too many professional musicians.
In 1914, Bayer manufactured dianisidine chlorosulfate for use in artillery shells, intended as a lung irritant against British forces in World War I. In 1925, Bayer was bought by IG Farben. During World War II, Farben used slave labor in factories it built in Nazi concentration camps. Hoffman was not part of either of these activities. He died in 1946.
In 1930, because they could not expand in Elberfeld, Bayer moved to Leverkusen, also in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1904, they founded the soccer team Bayer 04 Leverkusen, or just "Bayer Leverkusen."
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