Metal cylindrical container with screw top lid. Labelled "Genasprin. Safe Brand of Aspirin". The brand name Aspirin was coined in 1897 by pharmaceutical company Bayer. However, plant extracts, including willow bark and spiraea, of which salicylic acid was the active ingredient, had been known to help alleviate headaches, pains, and fevers since antiquity. The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, who lived sometime between 460 BC and 377 BC, left historical records describing the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree to help these symptoms.
A French chemist, Charles Frederic Gerhardt, was the first to prepare acetylsalicylic acid in 1853.