How Aspirin Influenced World War I

The winter and spring of 1917 was a period full of momentous events. It was the third year of World War I and our Canadian identity was being forged at Vimy Ridge. The Americans were just entering the war and the Germans had unleashed their U-boats on all sea-faring vessels.

In Russia, the February Revolution took place and the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, abdicated, foreshadowing Russia’s early exit from World War I and the rise of the Soviet Union. Among the many contributing factors to these events was an increasing public distrust and dislike of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, which was in part influenced by their association with the mystic Siberian faith healer Grigori Rasputin. Renowned for his lack of civility, Rasputin was able to manipulate the royal family for his own political gain and his influence would later be deemed a fatal disease for the Tsarist regime.

Alexandra and Nicholas II had 5 children; 4 girls first, and in 1904 they had a son named Alexei, who was heir to the Russian throne and last of the Romanov dynasty. Tragically, Alexei was born with hemophilia. Sometimes called the “royal disease”, it is a genetic blood clotting disorder whereby even the gentlest of falls can prove deadly. In Alexei’s case, chronic pain also accompanied the disease.

The causal mutation for hemophilia is imprinted on the X chromosome. Because women have two X chromosomes, the daughters of a carrier mother have a 50:50 chance of being carriers of the disease, yet will not display symptoms as the other X chromosome will mask the genetic miscue unless their father has hemophilia, but this is an uncommon occurrence. In contrast, in this circumstance a son has a 50:50 chance of inheriting the disease, and will present with full blown hemophilia if he inherits the compromised X chromosome from his mother. Alexandra was a carrier of hemophilia as she was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who was the original source of the royal disease.

This disease opened the door to Rasputin. In one commonly cited story, Alexei had a bad fall and was dying of internal bleeding. In response, Alexandra sent a panicked message to Rasputin pleading for help. His response is recorded as follows: “God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.”

In miraculous fashion, upon following the advice of Rasputin to send the doctors away, Alexei makes a recovery, which solidifies the faith his parents in Rasputin’s prophetic powers. Later, Nicholas II, who has no military training, will heed the mystic’s advice to head to the Eastern Front, furthering Rasputin’s political influence and extending civil unrest.

How did Rasputin save Alexei and earn the royal family’s trust? In 1853, a chemist named Charles Frederic Gerhardt combined acetyl chloride and sodium salicylate to create acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), albeit in an unstable form. In 1897, Felix Hoffman, a chemist with the German company Bayer, pioneered a more stable synthesis of ASA and developed the pharmaceutical we now know as aspirin. By 1899, Bayer had completed clinical trials with aspirin and began extensive marketing efforts, hailing the drug as the next great pain-reliever and by 1917, aspirin was a staple in any doctors pain-relieving kit.

Given his affliction, Alexei was susceptible to chronic pain, so doctors at the time would have likely administered aspirin. However, we now know that in addition to relieving pain, aspirin also prevents blood clotting, which would exacerbate the symptoms of hemophilia. The royal family’s doctors would probably have administered aspirin whenever Alexei was hurt and bleeding, a treatment which would perpetuate the problem. Rasputin may have saved Alexei’s life by sending the doctor’s away thereby preventing him from being exposed to aspirin.

The blood thinning properties of aspirin were not discovered until 1971 by Sir John Robert Vane who would receive a Nobel Prize for his explanation of how aspirin works. By 1963, it would be understood that aspirin is not suitable for administration to children because if its link to a metabolic disorder known as Reye’s Syndrome.

So, without the invention of this common painkiller, Rasputin might not have secured the trust of the royal family, which may have reduced the intensity of the civil unrest which contributed to the severity and brutality of the Russian Revolution. Russia might never have left the War and retained a more significant role in the Paris Peace Conference. Who knows, perhaps Lenin may not have taken control of the country, the Red Army and ultimately the USSR may have never been formed.

By Brennan Smith, PhD.

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