Making Aspirin.

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TITLE: MAKING ASPIRIN.

AIM: My aim in this experiment is to know the different methods used in making aspirin, the most suitable methods in making it, the apparatus needed in making the aspirin, the procedures and methods used in making aspirin.

After this, I will be performing an experiment in the laboratory on making aspirin, using the most suitable method and I will also be looking at the evaluation.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION.

HISTORY OF ASPIRIN.

Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is a simple molecule first synthesized in Germany 150 years ago. Its pain-relieving properties were recognized and exploited commercially 100 years ago. In the last 50 years, aspirin has been shown to have remarkable antithrombotic benefits.

Aspirin's antithrombotic effect is mediated by inhibition of blood platelets. The drug blocks a platelet enzyme, cyclo-oxygenase, by acetylating the enzyme's active site. Inhibition of the enzyme blocks production of an important prothrombotic agent known as thromboxane A2. Thromboxane A2 causes activation and aggregation of platelets, which is an early step in thrombosis. Aspirin is more effective in preventing arterial thrombosis (myocardial infarction, stroke) than venous thrombosis (deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism). The explanation for this difference seems to be that platelets play a larger role in causing arterial thrombosis.

Aspirin is a member of a family of chemicals called salicylates. These chemicals have been known to people interested in medicine for centuries.

One of the first and most influential physicians, Hippocrates, wrote about a bitter powder extracted from willow bark that could ease aches and pains and reduce fevers as long ago as the fifth century B.C. In the 1700s, the scientist Reverend Edmund Stone wrote about the success of the bark and the willow in the cure of the "agues," or fevers with aches. With a bit of chemical detective work, scientists found out that the part of willow bark that was (1) bitter and (2) good for fever and pain is a chemical known as salicin.

This chemical can be converted (changed) by the body after it is eaten to another chemical, salicylic acid (a compound that can be obtained from many plants including willow, birch, and myrtle trees. It was once used as a painkiller, but because it causes severe stomach pain it has been replaced by aspirin. But salicylic acid doesn't hurt if applied to the skin, and it is used today in wart-removing medicines). It was a pharmacist known as Leroux who showed in 1829 that salicin is this active willow ingredient, and for many years it, salicylic acid (made from salicin for the first time by Italian chemist Piria), and close relatives were used at high doses to treat pain and swelling in diseases like arthritis and to treat fever in illnesses like influenza (flu).

Unfortunately, Hoffmann had to wait for fame. He finished his initial studies in 1897, and his employers didn't pay much attention to it because it was new and they were cautious - they didn't think it had been tested enough. By 1899, though, one of Bayer's top chemists, a scientist named Dreser, had finished demonstrating the usefulness of the potent new medicine and even gave it a new name: aspirin. It is believed that the name comes from a plant relative of a rose that makes salicylic acid (several plants make this compound, not just the willow). The Bayer Company could then support the tested medicine; they spread the word and marketed the new pill widely.
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Over the next hundred years, this medicine would fall in and out of favor, at least two new families of medicines would be derived from it, and innumerable research articles would be published about aspirin. Thousands have been published in the past five years alone! One of the most important pieces of research about aspirin came in the early 1970s, when a British scientist named John Vane and his colleagues showed how aspirin works (see the following sections). His work was so important that he and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1982. Dr. ...

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