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Drugs taken from nature

Willow to aspirin

Salicin from bark, hydrolysed in the gut to salicylic acid, which wrecked stomachs. Acetylating it fixed the tolerability and created the modern drug industry's first blockbuster.

Filed under Drug Constellation Drugs taken from nature Status Upcoming

Not yet investigated

What we have so far

Salicin from bark, hydrolysed in the gut to salicylic acid, which wrecked stomachs. Acetylating it fixed the tolerability and created the modern drug industry's first blockbuster.

This star is on the map because the show intends to take the question apart properly — the trials, how it is actually tested, whether the thing sold is the thing studied. That work is not done yet, and nothing here should be read as a conclusion. When the investigation is published it will appear on this page.

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