Mariam Banoub
Emma Ryan
Julius Bonello
Peoria, Illinois, United States

“Ahhh, the pause that refreshes.”

“Things go better with Coke.”

“Taste the feeling.”

“So refreshing, so welcome, so everywhere.”

These phrases may elicit a feeling of warmth and joy. Or the feeling of a crisp, cold Coca-Cola on a hot summer’s day. They are meant to encourage the idea that enjoying a Coca-Cola means truly enjoying life. But Coca-Cola was not always associated with jovial times. Unfortunately, it has a much darker past, one that began before the American Civil War through the work of one man named John Pemberton.

On the eve of January 8, 1831 in Knoxville, Georgia, John Pemberton was born. He grew up in the primary schools of Rome, Georgia, where his family home had stood since the late 1700s. He then went on to pursue a medical education at the George Reform Medical College in Macon, Georgia. In 1850, he graduated and earned his license to practice botanic principles. Three years later, he married Elizabeth Lewis, and their first and only child, Charles Nay, was born the next year.

Yearning for his home, Pemberton returned to Rome with his family, where he practiced surgery and medicine. In 1855, he moved to Columbus where he established a wholesale retail drug business specializing in patent medicines. Though the time and place are lost to history, it is confirmed that Pemberton went on to acquire a graduate degree in pharmacy sometime before the start of the American Civil War.

When the American Civil War broke out, Pemberton enlisted and served in the Confederate Army for much of the war, where he attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the 26^th Georgia Calvary battalion. It was on the field of battle where the roots of Coca-Cola take hold. On April 16, 1865, during the Battle of Columbus GA, Pemberton led his men in the defense of Columbus’s northern bridge. It was there that Pemberton suffered a missile wound to his leg and a saber slash to his chest. Clinging precariously to his horse, pain consuming his every move, he fought unconsciousness as Confederate aides helped him to the ground. His soldiers escorted him to the surgeon’s tent where the doctors tended to his wounds and staved off his pain with morphine. Though his leg injury was minor, his chest wound proved agonizingly painful and required around-the-clock pain medications. After weeks of therapy, Pemberton became a morphine addict.

Pemberton was not alone in his affliction. Morphine addiction was so common after the American Civil War that it was known as the “soldier’s disease.” The Union Army alone issued ten million morphine pills to its soldiers in addition to approximately three million ounces of opium powder and tincture. Morphine addiction increased exponentially with the introduction of injectable morphine in 1856. As author David Courtwright stated in his book Darkness, “though it could cure little, it could relieve anything.” As a licensed physician and chemist, Pemberton understood the dangers of this addiction, and that with no therapeutic options, treatment for opium addiction was often unsuccessful and painful for patients and their families.

Saddled with his addiction, Pemberton began his search for safer substitutes. In 1866, he started experimenting and advertising an opiate-free painkiller called “Dr. Tuggles Compound of Globe Syrup” at his newly founded company, Pemberton’s Eagly Drug and Chemical Company. Unfortunately, it was a resounding failure. Despite this, his company became well-established and popular.

In an effort to gain access to a larger market, Pemberton moved to Atlanta in 1869. Within the same year, he became a principal owner in the firm of Pemberton, Wilson, Taylor and Co., producing botanical and patent medicines. As with his previous business venture, this company rose quickly in popularity and prestige. A local newspaper claimed Pemberton was “a man of learning and distinction. The most able physician Atlanta ever had.”

Much of his company’s success was due to the immense popularity of patent medicines. During the late 1800s, medications such as “Munson’s Paw-Paw Pills to Coax Your Liver into Action” and “Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills” were in high demand, their popularity driven by generously funded advertising. Many contained small but potent amounts of alcohol, caffeine, and morphine. Despite Pemberton’s remarkable debut, three years later he declared bankruptcy and struggled to recover after two fires hampered his rebuilding.

Yet Pemberton continued his quest for the holy grail of pharmacy: an opioid-free painkiller. In 1874, Pemberton glimpsed success when he read Dr. W.H. Bentley’s article on a possible cure for alcoholism and morphine addiction with the use of Erythroxylon coca, otherwise known as cocaine. The article claimed that “from actual experiment that coca is the very best substitute for opium … It supplies the place of that drug and the patient who will use it as a means of a cure may deliver himself from the pernicious habit.” Inspired by the possibilities, Pemberton immediately concocted his own version of Vin Mariana, a cocaine-based drink, naming his version French Wine Coca.

He patented French Wine Coca in 1885. When Atlanta passed a local alcohol prohibition, Pemberton was forced to remove the alcohol, which he replaced with sugar. Shortly thereafter, Frank Robinson, Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, rebranded the drink as Coca-Cola.

Commercially, Coca-Cola was destined to become a sensation all over the world; but for Pemberton it was no more of a success than his previous concoctions. On August 26, 1886, John Pemberton died from abdominal cancer, still riddled with a morphine addiction and without any knowledge of the eventual success of Coca-Cola. Prior to his death, Pemberton tried and failed to add his son Charles Nay as a partner in his company. Eight years later, Charles died at the young age of forty from chronic alcoholism and morphine addiction. Pemberton’s wife Elizabeth, widowed and alone, lived for another twenty-three years. She, too, died a pauper.

And yet, the world kept turning, and Coca-Cola kept up.

By 1888, the Coca-Cola Company was partially owned by the druggist Asa Candler. Three years later, Candler owned the whole company. To hide the secret formula, Candler scratched off the ingredients on the containers and replaced them with numbers. But the addictive ingredients eventually became known.

In 1903, Coca Cola removed most of the cocaine.

In 1915, the famous contour bottle hit the market.

In 1919, Ernest Woodruff bought the company, which he owned for thirty-five years.

In 1923, the six-pack was invented.

In 1929, Coca Cola removed all the cocaine.

And in 1982, Diet Coke took the world by storm.

In the words of its former CEO:

A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth.
A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged.
A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music.
A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning.
—Robert Goizueta, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997

References

• Courtwright, David. Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940. Harvard UP, 1982.
• Schmitt, Kellie. “A Brief History of Opioids in the US.” Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health, Fall/Winter 2023.