Salicylates

A salicylate is a salt or ester of salicylic acid. Salicylates are found naturally in some plants (such as white willow bark and wintergreen leaves) and are thought to protect the plant against insect damage and disease. Aspirin is a derivative of salicylic acid - and is also known as acetylsalicylic acid

Acetyl Salicylic Acid (Aspirin)

Chemical Name

2 – Acetoxybenzoic Acid

Molecular Formula

C9H8O4

Molecular Weight

180.2

Grades

IP /BP/Ph.EUR /USP-NF

Description

Colourless / odourless, white crystals / fine crystals / crystalline powder / granules / granular powder

Packing

25kg bags

CAS No.

50-78-2

No other over-the-counter drug has been around so long, or has been researched as extensively as ASPIRIN.

The history of aspirin (also known as acetylsalicylic acid or ASA) and the medical use of it and related substances stretches back to antiquity, though pure ASA has only been manufactured and marketed since 1899. Medicines made from willow and other salicylate-rich plants appear in Egyptian pharonic pharmacology papyri from the second millennium BCE. Hippocrates referred to their use of salicylic tea to reduce fevers around 400 BCE, and were part of the pharmacopoeia of Western medicine in Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. Willow bark extract became recognized for its specific effects on fever, pain and inflammation in the mid-eighteenth century. Lewis and Clark allegedly used willow bark tea in 1803-1806 as a remedy for fever for members of the famous expedition. By the nineteenth century pharmacists were experimenting with and prescribing a variety of chemicals related to salicylic acid, the active component of willow extract.

Aspirin – the drug widely used to deal with hangover headaches and many other minor illnesses – was developed in Germany by a chemical process described by research chemist Felix Hoffman on October 10, 1897. More than a 100 years later it is still the most versatile and effective medicine on the pharmacist’s shelf. But as doctors are now increasingly recognising, the drug does not just relieve aches and pains, it can also prevent a wide range of serious, life threatening conditions.

Discover more about this wonder drug :

http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/media/magazine/articles/27-2-aspirin.aspx

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/22/aspirin. history/index.html

http://www.aspirin.com/scripts/pages/en/aspirin_history/

http://www.aspirin-foundation.com/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin

Methyl Salicylate

Chemical Name

Methyl 2 – Hydroxybenzoate

Molecular Formula

C8H8O3

Molecular Weight

152.1

Grades

IP /BP/Ph.EUR /USP-NF

Description

Colourless / yellowish / reddish liquid, characteristic odour of wintergreen

Packing

35kg / 200kg drums

CAS No.

119-36-8

Sodium Salicylate

Chemical Name

Sodium 2 – Hydroxybenzoate

Molecular Formula

C7H5NaO3

Molecular Weight

160.1

Grades

IP /BP/Ph.EUR /USP-NF

Description

White crystalline powder / colourless crystal / shiny flakes

Packing

25 kg / 525kg bags

CAS No.

54-21-7

Salicylamide

Chemical Name

2 – Hydroxybenzamide

Molecular Formula

C7H7NO2

Molecular Weight

137.14

Grades

USP-NF

Description

White / odourless crystalline powder

Packing

25kg bags / drums

CAS No.

65-45-2