The question of who invented aspirin, patented in 1898, is, ironically, the cause of many a headache. According to the pharmaceutical firm Bayer, chemist Felix Hoffmann was chiefly responsible for the development of the drug. In 1999, Prof. Walter Sneader, an expert on pharmaceutical history, devoted himself to the case. With the permission of Bayer, he evaluated Hoffmann’s laboratory records and concluded that he could only have played a subordinate role. The true discoverer of acetylsalicylic acid, later known as aspirin, was Dr. Arthur Eichengrün.

Eichengrün was born in 1867 in the German city of Aachen. At the age of 18, he devoted himself to the study of chemistry. By 1896, Eichengrün was working for leading pharmaceutical company Bayer. He later started his own firm, but with the rise of the Nazis, his company was “Aryanized” and Eichengrün was later arrested for failing to identify himself as a Jew in a letter to a Nazi official. When he was arrested a second...