Aspirin--the first hundred years

'Take two aspirin and call me in the morning', may be an old cliché deriding the medical profession, but the story of the first 100 years of aspirin suggests that this drug may be of benefit for a far greater range of ailments than those who synthesised it 100 years ago could have imagined.     

A hundred years of gemellology

Over the past hundred years, since Sir Francis Galton first pointed out its scientific value, the study of twins has considerably widened its scope and significance. Gemellology has come to represent an important branch of human genetics and to be applied to the most diverse fields of biomedical and behavioral research, besides obviously contributing to the study of the specific biological, medical, and psychological aspects of the twin condition. More recently, then, it has in turn originated a new branch of modern genetic research, chronogenetics. Finally, sponsored and coordinated by the Mendel Institute in Rome, an International Society for Twins Studies has developed.