DID YOU KNOW? for October 7 – 20, 2025

Long before 1492 when Columbus landed in the Caribbean Islands, Native Americans were creating inventions that have shaped modern life in significant ways, including the use of natural ingredients as pain relievers, birth control and medical devices. Here are a few of those inventions:

Pain relievers - Native American healers were known to use willow bark as an anti-inflammatory and pain reliever. It contains salicin, which generates salicylic acid when consumed, which is the active ingredient in modern-day aspirin.

Oral birth control - Long before the development of birth control as we know it today, Shoshone and Navajo tribes used stoneseed as oral contraceptives. 

Syringes - Indigenous tribes created a tool using animal bladders and sharpened, hollowed-out bird bone to inject medicine and irrigate wounds. Learn more here.