A note on Aspirin
Here's another book that I read some months ago, but only get around to mentioning now: Diarmuid Jeffreys, Aspirin : The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug (New York : Bloomsbury, 2004, 335 pages). Here's my book note about it.
This was a book by a journalist rather than a scientist. Occasionally the writing was a little more breezy than I find to my taste, but it was never irritating and the author kept his narrative goals admirably in sight. Overall, then, there might be fewer deep, analytical insights on offer, but that may make it more digestible for many people. It was a congenial book to spend some time with.
The story Jeffreys tells is good fun and aspirin is pretty amazing stuff that we take rather for granted these days–indeed, have taken for granted pretty much since the turn of the twentieth century. And then there was that whole episode during WWII with IG Farben and the Nazis and … well, you probably should read the book.
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on Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 23.38
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Indeed, aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid, sometimes abbreviated to ASA, is serious medicine. Last time I read about it, which was quite a few years ago, medical researchers were quick to point out two things about it. First, new medical usefulness was still being discovered. Second, its full effect and the exact mechanism by which it relieves several kinds of pain were still not fully understood. I expect much more is understood about it by now.