~ COMMERCIAL ACETYLSALICYLIC ACID ' 
By MARIANO VY. DEL ROSARIO and PATROCINIO VALENZUELA 
Of the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, 
University of the Philippines 
‘During the years prior to the World War there were only two 
factories in Germany which supplied acetylsalicylic acid to the 
whole world; the Farben-fabriken vorm. F. Bayer, of Lever- 
kusen, whose product was known as aspirin, and the factory of E. 
Merk, of Darmstadt, where the constitutional chemical name 
was given to the preparation by the firm and its foreign agencies. 
Several English patents were issued, which one after another 
became invalid or void or were protested. A German patent, 
No. 93110 (June 14, 1896), “Verfahren zur Darstellung von 
Salicyl-essig-Siure,” was; granted to Dr. Ludwig Simpach, of 
Berlin. £4 
When the World War broke out one of the sequels was the 
deliberate disregard of treaties and patents which ipso facto 
became “scraps of paper” and, as a consequence, this substance 
was manufactured in other countries of Europe as well as in 
North America and Japan. Though the name of aspirin was 
in most cases preserved, in France the substance prepared in 
the factories along the Rhone was called Rhodine. The name 
aspirin is now public property.” * ; 
The result of such extensive production of aspirin was the 
manufacture of a large number of preparations under this name 
or its synonyms, which were placed on the market, though 
perhaps they do not conform to the requirements of the dif- 
ferent pharmacopeias. 
* Read at the Philippine Pharmaceutical Convention on January 31, 1921. 
* Extra Pharmacopea, by Martindale and Westcott, London. 
Note——The Druggists’ Circular 56 (June, 1921) 229 reports that in 
New York a case was tried before the court, the litigants being the Bayer 
Company against the United Drug Company. The judge decided that the 
word “Aspirin” is a trade-mark for manufacturing chemists, retail drug- 
gists, and physicians, but not a trade-mark for the public. Accordingly he 
ruled (April 14, 1921) that packages of 50 or less tablets can be sold to the 
consumer as aspirin; but packages containing more than 50 tablets (pre- 
sumably for use by druggists and physicians) of the defendant manufacturer 
of Acetyl-salicylic acid may not be sold as “Aspirin.” 
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