Category: Pharmaceutical history

For centuries, various cultures used plants containing a compound called salicin to relieve pain and reduce fevers. The story of what plant gives aspirin begins not in a modern lab, but in ancient herbal medicine, where the willow tree and meadowsweet held the key to a powerful remedy.

At its peak in 1978, the anti-anxiety drug Valium (diazepam) sold 2.3 billion tablets in the United States, making it overwhelmingly clear **what was the top selling prescription drug in the 1970s**. This dominance reflected a broader cultural embrace of pharmaceuticals to manage anxiety, a trend that would later face significant backlash.

Introduced in 1887, phenacetin was once a widely used pain and fever reducer but was eventually withdrawn from markets worldwide due to its toxic effects. Understanding **what is phenacetin** reveals a cautionary tale of drug development, where a potent remedy was eventually eclipsed by its severe, long-term health consequences, leading to its replacement by safer alternatives like acetaminophen.