Cafiaspirina | 1938

“Ni por todo el oro del mundo” (Not for all the gold in the world) can you win back the hours lost to pain, said this ad, published on New Year’s Eve 1938. The promise came straight after: Cafiaspirina “overcomes all pain” and restores “well-being and optimism”.

Behind the name is Bayer, founded in 1863 in Barmen (now Wuppertal, Germany) by Friedrich Bayer, a dye merchant, and Johann Friedrich Weskott, a master dyer. In 1897 the chemist Felix Hoffmann produced acetylsalicylic acid there, registered as Aspirin in 1899. Cafiaspirina combines aspirin with caffeine.

In this ad we can see the Bayer cross and the slogan “el remedio soberano” (the sovereign remedy). It appeared in FOTOS, a Falangist propaganda weekly published in San Sebastián during the Spanish Civil War, in the issue of 31 December 1938.

Today a claim like “overcomes all pain” would not be allowed in a medicine ad, and we know aspirin has its risks too. A curiosity: in March 1981 the cover of Selecciones, the Spanish Reader’s Digest, announced a “novelty”: aspirin against heart attacks.

Cafiaspirina is still sold in Spain and in several Latin American countries.

Text in the ad

Ni por todo el oro del mundo…
pueden recuperarse aquellas horas de nuestra vida que perdimos al aprovecharlas mal y que quisiéramos revivir mejor. ¿Ha meditado Vd. sobre esto alguna vez, cuando resignadamente soportó un dolor que le amargaba la vida? Esas horas de dolor no las recuperará jamás. ¿Cuántas más quiere perder aún? Ha de saber que CAFIASPIRINA vence todo dolor devolviéndonos el bienestar y el optimismo. Es de absoluta confianza porque es un producto Bayer.
Cafiaspirina
El remedio soberano

Translation:
Not for all the gold in the world…
can we win back those hours of our life that we lost by spending them badly and would like to live again, better. Have you ever thought about this, when you resignedly put up with a pain that soured your life? You will never get those hours of pain back. How many more do you still want to lose? You should know that CAFIASPIRINA overcomes all pain, giving us back our well-being and optimism. It is entirely trustworthy because it is a Bayer product.
Cafiaspirina
The sovereign remedy

Brand

Cafiaspirina

Year

1938

Decade

1930s

Country

Spain

Medium

Magazine

Themes

Medicine