Direct Evidence for a Furtive State in the Degradation of Carbasalatum Calcicum

摘要

The soothing effects of the bark,leaves,and fruits of species of the Spirea genus were known in a mystical,intuitive manner to our most distant ancestors.The knowledge was then formalized,compiled,and propagated throughout the world by the great physicians and pharmacologists,such as Hippocrates,Theophrastus,Dioscorides,and Galen.After this period,this blossoming area of therapeutics lay dormant for almost two thousand years and its renaissance only began in the early eighteenth century when the English pastor and naturalist Edward Stone published his case-study of the effect of willow bark on patients suffering from agues.Novel insights then followed in rapid succession:in 1838 the Italian chemist Rafelle Piria extracted the active component,salicylic acid (SA),in 1874 Hermann Kolbe published its total synthesis,and by 1899 three derivatives devoid of the unpleasant side effects of the pure acid had been discovered.