Drug and medication trivia

I thought you'd be interested in this:

Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in 1899, after Felix Hoffman, a German chemist at the drug company Bayer, successfully modified Salicylic Acid, a compound found in willow bark to produce Aspirin.

Bayer® Aspirin was the first drug ever to be marketed in tablet form. First marketed in 1899 as a powder, by 1900 aspirin was being compressed into a water-soluble tablet.

Cocaine was the first local anesthetic; being used as such from about 1884 onwards.

In an article in 1998, The Journal of the American Medical Association claimed that adverse drug reactions may cause more than 100,000 deaths a year in the US alone.

Also:

The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.