Aspirin is one of the safest and least expensive pain relievers on the marketplace. While other pain relievers were discovered and manufactured before aspirin, they only gained acceptance as over-the-counter drugs in Europe and the United States after aspirin's success at the turn of the twentieth century.

Today, Americans alone consume 16,000 tons of aspirin tablets a year, equaling 80 million pills, and we spend about $2 billion a year for non-prescription pain relievers, many of which contain aspirin or similar drugs.

Currently, the drug is available in several dosage forms in various concentrations from .0021 to .00227 ounces (60 to 650 milligrams), but the drug is most widely used in tablet form. Other dosage forms include capsules, caplets, suppositories and liquid elixir.

Aspirin can be used to fight a host of health problems: cerebral thromboses (with less than one tablet a day); general pain or fever (two to six tablets a day); and diseases...