共用题干第二篇The World ’ s Best-Selling Medicin

共用题干

第二篇

The World ’ s Best-Selling Medicine

Since ancient times,people all over the world have used willow to stop pain.The willow tree contains
salicylic acid（水杨酸）.This stops pain,but there is one problem. Salicylic acid also hurts the stomach. In
1853,a French scientist made a mixture from willow that did not hurt the stomach.However,his mixture was
difficult to make,and he did not try to produce or sell it.
In 1897,in Germany,Felix Hoffmann also made a mixture with salicylic acid.He tried it himself first
and then gave it to his father because his father was old and in a lot of pain.His father’s pain went away,
and the mixture did not hurt his stomach.
Hoffmann worked for Bayer,a German company.He showed his new drug to his manager,who tested
the drug and found that it worked well.Bayer decided to make the drug. They called it aspirin and put the
Bayer name on every pill.
Aspirin was an immediate success.Almost everyone has pain of some kind,so aspirin answered a true
need.Aspirin was cheap,easy to take,and effective.It also lowered fevers.Aspirin was a wonder drug.
At first,Bayer sold the drug through doctors,who then sold it to their patients.In 1915,the company
started to sell aspirin in drugstores. In the United States , Bayer had a patent（专利权）on the drug. Other
companies could make similar products and sell them in other countries,but only Bayer could make and sell
aspirin in the United States.In time,Bayer could no longer own the name aspirin in the United States.
Other companies could make it there,too.However,Bayer aspirin was the most well known,and for many
years,it was the market leader.
By the 1950s,new painkillers were on the market.Aspirin was no.longer the only way to treat pain and
reduce fever. Bayer and other companies looked for other drugs to make.However,in the l970s they got a
surprise.Doctors noticed that patients who were taking aspirin had fewer heart attacks than other people.A
British researcher named John Vane found the reason aspirin helped to prevent heart attacks.In 1982,he won
the Nobel Prize for his research.Doctors started to tell some of their patients to take aspirin every day to pre-
vent heart attacks.It has made life better for the many people who take it.It has also made a lot of money for
companies like Bayer that produce and sell it!

Bayer aspirin was________. A:the only drug with the name"aspirin" B:the first aspirin sold in the United States C:not sold in drugstores in 1915 D:not easy to find in drugstores