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Some physicians have found evidence that aspirin may literally act like the hormones and stimulate the patient's adrenal glands to work better. A similar added benefit is suspected, but not yet proved, for victims of kidney stones: originally prescribed only to relieve the pain, aspirin may help to keep new stones from forming.
Aspirin has a great advantage over most other painkillers, notably morphine, in that it is nonaddicting, and the dosage does not have to be progressively increased. It has no attraction for suicidal adults: the vast majority of people can take huge overdoses without killing themselves.
But an overdose may be lethal for small children, and 100 or more in the U.S. die from aspirin poisoning in an average year. Thousands more, beguiled by candy coatings and flavors, are made so deathly ill that they have to have their stomachs pumped out. Aspirin irritates the lining of the stomach, and ulcer victims often find the effects of the medicine worse than the headache they are trying to cure. In extreme cases, they suffer internal bleeding or their ulcers perforate. As with all drugs, a few people are abnormally sensitive to aspirin; even a normal dose may cause dizziness, nausea, a skin rash, or an asthmatic crisis.
But such unfortunates are the exception. By and large, aspirin is good for what ails you.
*The name salicylic acid is derived from the Latin salix, willow, though the same substance occurs in many plants, including spiraea, from which the word aspirin is derived.