White willow bark

White willow grows in almost any moist garden soil under full sun.  Buy saplings at nurseries or propagate them from first year branches several feet in length rooted in water or from foot long hardwood cuttings taken in spring or fall and rooted the same way.  Do not transplant willows.  Willows grow quickly and must be pruned regularly.

Chinese physicians have used white willow bark to relieve pain since 500 B.C., but it took five centuries for that use to work its way to Europe.  First century Greek physician Dioscorides was the first Westerner to recommend willow bark for pain and inflammation, and his prescription did not catch on.  A century later, the Roman doctor Galen recommended it only for the vague purpose of "drying up humors."

As the centuries passed, herbalists prescribed white willow bark for many ailments, including supression of sexual desire.  Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper noted: "The leaves, bark, and seed are used to stanch bleeding...stay vomiting...provoke urine...take away warts...and clear the face and skin from spots and discolorings."

At this time, white willow was not commonly used to treat pain, but Culpeper touted the work of one Mr. Stone, who demonstrated its "great efficacy...in intermittent fever [malaria]."  Culpeper concluded white willow bark "is likely to become an object worthy of ...attention."

Culpeper's words proved prophetic.  By the 18th century, white willow bark was widely used to treat all sorts of fevers, and its pain-relieving action also returned to vogue.  Early colonists introduced the tree into North America and found many Indian tribes using the bark of native willows to treat pain, chills, and fever.

Around 1828, French and German chemists extracted white willow bark's active chemical, salicin.  Ten years later, an Italian chemist purified the aspirin precursor, salicylic acid.  Although this potent pain reliever was first discovered in white willow, chemists made the first aspirin from another her that contains the same chemical - meadowsweet.  Salicin was discovered in meadowsweet in 1839.  During the mid-19th century, researchers showed both salicin and salicylic acid reduce fever and relieve pain and inflammation. Unfortunately, they also have unpleasant and potentially hazardous side effects: nausea, diarrhea, bleeding, stomach ulceration and ringing in the ears.

Chemists created acetylsalicylic acid - aspirin-from salicylic acid obtained from meadowsweet.  The idea was to preserve the benefits of salicylic acid while minimizing side effects.

Aspirin eventually became the household drug of choice for a broad range of everyday ailments.