Hey Freak!

OK, so I have a headache.

I was just wondering... how was aspirin discovered? I'm not talking about the blends you find in today's pills; I'm talking about the original powder that today's blends are derived from. I know it's derived from some sort of tree bark... but how did people figure out that it cures headaches? Did some suffering caveman just start chewing on a tree, and then notice "Hey, Zog's head feel better!"? I mean, it's been around for centuries, right? The Greek physician (and the dude known as the "father" of western medicine) Hippocrates used it. Ancient Native Americans used it. As far as I know, they didn't have the internet back then... so how did so many different cultures discover it?

Yeah, I think about things like this sometimes. Intellectual curiousity, I guess.

Maybe it was "discovered" the same way many foods were discovered - people saw animals eating it. But then, how did people know that [whatever animal] had a headache?

I dunno. Stuff like that just makes me wonder.

Speaking of things that make me wonder... how is it that we live in a society that allows this: OJ Simpson has a new book coming out. It's titled "If I did it," and it describes how he would have committed the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson... if he did them. Now, I know he was acquitted of the crime, but still. Let's even go so far as to say for sure that he didn't do them. It's still in wayyyyyy fucking poor taste.

Yeah, yeah. He's exercising his first amendment rights. I have to support that. I don't like what he's saying, and I think he should shut the fuck up and disappear into obscurity, but I still have to support his right to free speech. Freedom certainly is tough.

Maybe that's why I have a headache...

I want to know who came up with the idea of cooking meat. I mean, was there a huge fire and then a zebra fell into it, and people said, "Oooh, that smells good"?

Heh. That's like... sloths. Everybody knows that sloths are like, really really slow moving creatures. How are they not extinct, as a species? They certainly can't move fast enough to get away from any predators.

Their solution? They taste really bad. So bad, that nobody wants to eat them.

Now, who was the first predator to think "Ooh! Food. *munch* Ew! He tastes like shit! Fuck eating that thing."? Can you imagine how stupid he felt?

And, what if the predator had friends. Do you think he said to his friend "My god, this thing tastes like shit! Here, you try it!" Did his friend try it? Or did he trust the first guy's opinion? Or did he think "You just said it tasted like shit... so why would I even want to try it?" Heh.

And, think about the poor sloth that got killed. He had to "take one for the team."

I told you. I think about these things.

Yeha, I think it's from a willow. I like the idea of cavemen doing it, especially since I can picture them watching the guy with the headache chewing bark and then saying, "Ooh, look what Thag do."

They may not have had the internet, but they did have aliens travelling all over and sharing info (or so I've been told). They never bothered with the secret to interstellar travel or even flight, but they told them all about aspirin and pyramids.

It's an interesting thing about OJ, because he was found not guilty of the crime, yet legally was held responsible for the deaths. So he should and should not be allowed to profit from it all at the same time. I love our legal system.

Maybe writing the book is part of his search for the real killers (he's still doing that right?). He figures if he writes this, the real guy is going to come out and say, "No, no, no. That's not how I did it at all."

And I forgot...do you thing that the first caveman who used willow bark went back to his friends in the cave and said, "Willow Bark, apply directly to the forehead"?

Maybe OJ read about Pete Rose selling signed baseballs that say "Sorry I bet on baseball," and thought, "Wait... how do I get some of that scratch?"

I see it this way. OJ is done. He can't even work at a Hertz Rent-a-Car counter, let alone get another spot in their commercials. As far as anyone is concerned, he's a killer, a pariah, and box office poison. He's got one way on the planet to make money, and, wow, it's gonna make him a lot of money.

Is anyone going to think any less of him for doing it? In the court of public opinion, he's already lower than Saddam. How could they? So, he can either get really scummy and make mad dough, or take the high road and just be a classy asshole murderer.

And there you have it.

Dude I totally wonder that about aspirin too! Not to mention, how long did it take before they definitively noticed that eating the bark cured the headache?

You wanna know what else I wonder about? Stuff like penecillin. It's made from mold! Who decided that they'd try eating mold to cure an illness??

Then again though, I have a feeling back then it was A LOT of trial and error. Some things work today and are great, and other things we learn actually harmed more than they helped. Like, bleeding people with leeches when they were ill--umm, if you were sick BEFORE, now you're sick AND are weak from loss of blood!

Has anyone looked up Aspirin on Wiki?

ok, wiki just said something about bark too. hehe Well, from my own experience, I might suggest that bark has often been used as a type of tea, so maybe a tribal shaman started noticing the effects of that "tea" and then experimented with it.???

I have to try not to throw up when I think of OJ profiting from the murders. Go ahead, nearly decapitate your children's mother and an innocent bystander--manage to get acquitted in criminal court, but be found liable in civil court. Then, move to Florida where the rules about protected property are the most generous liberal and search for the *real killer.* (Sorry Mikey for spewing in your comments.)

I got so distracted by the OJ stuff, I forgot to mention. There are medicinal uses for leeches now. I have put them on patients myself.

Ooh, penicillin! I know the story of that one. *Waving hand in air like an overanxious teacher's pet.*

That one isn't as random as finding out that bark cures a headache. The mold was growing on a petri dish with bacteria and Flemming saw that wherever the Penicillium mold was, bacteria didn't grow near it. He isolated what was responsible for the effect, and that's how we got penicillin. Basically, poor technique led to one of the most important medical discoveries.

Ok, I'm a really big nerd, and that was probably more than anyone really cared about.

Aspirin is from willow, and I'm pretty sure that people learned about it from doing the whole tea thing. I think that's how people found out about all sorts of medicinal herbs. People probably made yummy tasting tea and then noticed it made their head feel better if they drank it.

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