Salicin

Glucoside of saligenin (salicylic alcohol), which is mainly found in the bark and other plant parts of Salix (willow) and Populis (poplar) species. It is also found in the herb of the wild pansy (Viola tricolor), in the meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) and in the false berry (Gaultheria procumbens). Salicin is produced by these plants as an insect repellent. This protective coating is used by bees to produce the antibiotic putty resin(propolis).

After oral administration of the drug, salicin is converted into the aglucon saligenin in the intestine, which is metabolized after absorption into salicylic acid (2-hydroxybenzoic acid), which has analgesic and antipyretic effects. Salicylic acid inhibits the synthesis of prostaglandins by blocking the enzyme cyclooxygenase (COX).

Salicin was first isolated from the bark of willows in 1838 by Raffaele Piria (1814-1865), an Italian physician and chemist. Almost 60 years later, in 1897, Felix Hoffmann (1868-1946) and Arthur Eichengrün (1867-1949) synthesized acetylsalicylic acid from salicylic acid for the Bayer company and named it "Aspirin", derived from "spiric acid" (alternative name for "salicylic acid"). The salicylic acid for this, however, came from the meadowsweet, the spirea, spirea bush (Filipendula ulmaria) (Kohl 1999).

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