Magic in the willow bark

To enjoy one of Monet’s haystacks, it’s best to stand back to take in the wonder of the light and form, without worrying that individual stalks aren’t identifiable — this book is like that. It tells, with great verve, the story of aspirin, the emblematic story of 20th-century medicine — but the reader is well advised not to look too critically at the scientific detail. The style is historical fiction. For example, the author describes in great detail how the room in Luxor looked when Edwin Smith bought the Ebers Papyrus in 1862. Still, the author has read widely, if not deeply, and delivers a fast-paced narrative.

The pharmaceutical industry of the 20th century began with the successful synthesis and exploitation of aspirin, and the drug’s path illustrates the factors that will probably still determine developments in the 21st century. The virtue of willow bark was established by experience, but the synthesis of pure aspirin captured that virtue without much of its vice. Here was a synthetic drug that worked and a new alchemy was established which transmuted pharmacology into gold. For the first three-quarters of the 20th century the proportion of scientific fact to marketing fiction heavily favoured the latter, and the drug’s protean actions were a source of amazement. The explanation — that these properties were due to cyclooxygenase inhibition — opened a new chapter for aspirin. It also exemplified how new drugs now come as the dividend of resources put into fundamental research.

The journalistic style, factual approximations and the many examples of spell-check autonomy do not prevent this from being a good read, worth the money.

M Laurence MashfordPharmacologist, Parkville, VIC