It is widely known that Coca-Cola once contained cocaine and was sold in drugstore soda fountains as a health drink and cure for various ailments. But as Joe Nickell writes in his recent article in Skeptical Inquirer, nearly all the major soft drinks on the market today were once advertised the way Coke was, though of course recipes have been altered over the years.
Ironically, soft drinks in the 21st century have been pegged as one of the major contributors to obesity in the West due to their high caloric content; on the other hand, even at the turn of the twentieth century when the drinks were touted as cure-alls, there was no evidence that they actually conferred the health benefits attributed to them.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola
Clues to Coke and Pepsi’s medicinal origins can still be found lurking in their names. The very word “cola” is derived from the kola nut, which contains caffeine and is used to flavor both drinks. Coke got its name from the coca plant, and until around 1900 Coke did indeed contain cocaine; in fact, the soft drink, developed by doctor and pharmacist John S. Pemberton, was originally intended as a non-alcoholic version of a coca wine. Coca-Cola was sold exclusively at drugstore soda fountains until 1894; its medicinal properties were said to include easing of headaches and cures for dyspepsia and impotence.
Pepsi derives its name from the digestive enzyme pepsin, and like Coke it was also developed by a pharmacist, Caleb Bradham (hence the soda’s original name, Brad’s Drink). Pepsi was first marketed as an energy booster and digestive aid.
Dr Pepper and 7UP
Yet another pharmacist, Charles Alderton of Waco, Texas, invented the soft drink that today goes by the name Dr Pepper (the Dr originally had a period, but it was dropped in the 1950s to tone down the “medical” association). Like Pepsi, Dr Pepper was first marketed as an energy drink, and like Coke, one of its health benefits was purported to be as a “brain tonic.”
7UP started out life as “Bib-label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” and at first it contained a significant amount of lithium, a mineral that is today prescribed for a wide range of psychiatric disorders. When 7UP was launched in 1929, it was marketed as a medicine for rheumatism, kidney stones and gout, though there is no evidence that lithium helps cure these ailments. The near-toxic levels of lithium were removed from 7UP in the 1940s, and the drink’s previously high sodium content was lessened by removing sodium citrate and replacing it with potassium citrate.
Root Beer
True to its name, root beer was once an alcoholic drink, brewed from the sassafras root, which had been used for centuries in various folk remedies. Early root beer recipes also contained sarsaparilla root, which was said to help with digestion and to cure jaundice and syphilis, among other things. The inventor of the familiar root beer known today has been lost to history, but the drink was first nationally marketed in around 1876 by pharmacist Charles Hires.
In the 1960s, sassafras oil was banned by the FDA after it was shown to cause cancer and liver damage in laboratory rats. Afterward, sassafras was removed from root beer and the drink was reformulated into the soft drink as it is sold today.
Source:
Nickell, Joe. "'Pop' Culture: Patent Medicines Become Soda Drinks." Skeptical Inquirer Jan.-Feb. 2011: 14-17. Print.
Jenny Ashford - Jenny Ashford is a writer and graphic artist from central Florida. Her main area of interest in her Suite 101 articles is science, with a ...
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