Lorane Baljay, age 13, of Cherry Hill, N.J., for her question:

What is aspirin?

Any member of the family may take a couple of aspirin tablets to help banish a headache. We take aspirin to relieve the thumping agony of a throbbing tooth until the dentist can tend to things. Doctors recommend this harmless drug to ease the miseries caused by colds, fever and a host of more serious physical ills.

The kindly qualities of this harmless drug have been known since ancient times. A more simple form of our modern aspirin was used by the Romans. Long ago it was discovered also by the American Indians and by the medicine men of certain African tribes. These earlier forms of the soothing drug were extracted from certain plants.

The Romans got their simplified aspirin by soaking the leaves and bark of the willow tree. Modern aspirin is a complex chemical called acetyl salicylic acid. The early varieties were plant juices containing simply salicylic acid. Naturally, the ancient medicine was not known by this chemical name, nor were they called aspirin. Our modern aspirin was discovered in Germany in the mid 1800s, when chemists were busy separating the marvelous assortment of substances in coal tar.

It was discovered at the Bayer Laboratories in Dusseldorf in 1853, but for almost 50 years the great blessings of this by product of coal tar were not recognized. It was given the chemical name acetyl salicylic acid and the trade name aspirin. The word aspirin was coined from spirea, a plant known to yield salicylic acid. As a chemical compound, aspirin is a complex arrangement of atoms of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen.

The kindly qualities of aspirin began to come to light after 1899. Modern medical experiments reveal more and still more hidden benefits in the amazing drug. Aspirin is classed as an analgesic drug, a drug that eases pain, but des not numb the nerve centers or make the patient unconscious. Its talents as a pain soother and a fever reducer make aspirin one of our greatest blessings in time of sickness. And it is harmless enough to sit safely in the family medicine chest, but high on the top shelf where uneducated babes cannot reach and help themselves.

Powdery white aspirin tablets are made of a crystalline chemical, which has no odor. It has a very bitter taste, however, but this can be avoided if we swallow the dosage with a fast drink of water. There is almost no end to the list of physical discomforts that can be eased by a dose of aspirin, and the average family uses a large quota of the reliable drug. In one year, Americans buy 11 million pounds, 5,500 tons, of aspirin tablets.