Aspirin : a bitter pill.

First produced in 1897, aspirin was the subject of a battle between scientists Arthur Eichengrun and Felix Hoffman, Eichengrun's co-worker at the Bayer laboratories, who was credited with its discovery. In a letter written from Terazin concentration camp in 1944, Arthur Eichengrun insists on his claim. The programme makes a very detailed examination of the dispute, tracing the relationship between the scientists on the research team and the laboratory procedures at Bayer. The investigation is led by Dr. Walter Sneader (Univ. of Strathclyde) and is set against the economic and political events of Germany between the two world wars which are necessarily involved in the story. Arthur Eichengrun was liberated from Terazin and died in Switzerland in 1949. Aspirin, the biggest selling drug in history, continues to attract research and yield new information and possibilities.