Felix Hoffmann - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Felix Hoffmann was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

, credited for the first synthesized medically useful forms of heroin and aspirin

Aspirin

Aspirin , also known as acetylsalicylic acid , is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication. It was discovered by Arthur Eichengrun, a chemist with the German company Bayer...

, though some sources maintain that Arthur Eichengrün

Arthur Eichengrün

Arthur Eichengrün was a German chemist, best known through a controversy about who invented aspirin.- Life :Arthur Eichengrün was born in Aachen as the son of a Jewish cloth merchant and manufacturer...

was the real creator of the latter. Hoffmann was born in Ludwigsburg

Ludwigsburg

Ludwigsburg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg urban district with about 87,000 inhabitants...

and studied Chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. In 1894, he joined the Bayer

Bayer

Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen , Germany in 1863. It is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and well known for its original brand of aspirin.-History:...

pharmaceutical research facility in Elberfeld

Elberfeld

Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.-History:The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161...

.

He is best known for having synthesized acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) on August 10, 1897, for the first time in a stable form usable for medical applications. Bayer marketed this substance as Aspirin

Aspirin

. However, this has been disputed. In 1949, Arthur Eichengrün published a paper in which he claimed to have planned and directed the synthesis of Aspirin along with the synthesis of several related compounds. He also claimed to be responsible for Aspirin's initial surreptitious clinical testing. Finally, he claimed that Hoffmann's role was restricted to the initial lab synthesis using his (Eichengrün's) process and nothing more.

The Eichengrün version was ignored by historians and chemists until 1999, when Walter Sneader of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Strathclyde

University of Strathclyde

The University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university...

in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

re-examined the matter and concluded that Eichengrün's account is convincing and correct and that Eichengrün deserves credit for the invention of Aspirin. Bayer promptly denied this theory in a press release, claiming that the invention of Aspirin was due to Hoffmann.

, the controversy is still open: while Sneader's version has been widely reported, there are no independent second sources supporting either version.

Both substances had been synthesized earlier, but not in forms that could be used for medication. ASA had first been synthesized by Frenchman

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

Charles Frédéric Gerhardt

Charles Frédéric Gerhardt was a French chemist.-Biography:He was born in Strasbourg, where he attended the gymnasium. He then studied at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where Friedrich Walchner's lectures first attracted his interest to chemistry...

in 1853, and diacetylmorphine (that is, heroin) by C.R. Alder Wright, a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

chemist in 1873.

Following the synthesis of aspirin, Hoffmann changed to the pharmaceutical marketing department, where he stayed until his retirement in 1928. In 2002, he was inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame

National Inventors Hall of Fame

The National Inventors Hall of Fame is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recognizing, honoring and encouraging invention and creativity through the administration of its programs. The Hall of Fame honors the men and women responsible for the great technological advances that make human,...

See also