before noting that the drug was present in âa soda fountain drink manufactured in Atlanta and known as Coca-Colaâ and that âmen become addicted to drinking it, and find it hard to release themselves from the habit.â
Candler had had enough. He traveled to New York to find a way of ridding his drink of the troublesome drug. In New York he found Dr. Louis Schaefer, the German founder of the Schaefer Alkaloid Works, who said it was possible to remove all the cocaine from the coca leaf, allowing Candler to keep the coca in his drink while also banishing the cocaine taint. Candler put Schaefer in charge of producing Merchandise No. 5, and Schaefer developed a method for eliminating every last molecule of the cocaine from the coca leaves. By the end of 1903 Candler could confidently declare that Coca-Cola was cocaine free. But if Candler thought he could finally put his drinkâs drug problems behind him, he hadnât reckoned with Dr. Harvey Wiley, the chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, who now had Coca-Cola firmly in his sights.
4
A Snail in a Bottle
On October 1, 1902, a dozen young men sat down to eat a meal laced with benzoic acid and America held its breath. They were the Poison Squad, hired by the federal government to dice with death for the sake of the nationâs health. For five dollars a month they would munch on additive-loaded feasts to find out if they were harmful, and their fate gripped the country.
Newspaper reporters clamored to get the exclusive on their latest toxic dinner. People in soda fountains gossiped about what might happen to these human guinea pigs. The eraâs most famous blackface minstrel showman, Lew Dockstader, composed a ditty in their honor: âIf ever you should visit the Smithsonian Institute, look out that Professor Wiley doesnât make you a recruit. Heâs got a lot of fellows there that tell him how they feel, they take a batch of poison every time they eat a meal. For breakfast they get cyanide of liver, coffin shaped, for dinner, undertakerâs pie, all trimmed with crepe. For supper, arsenic fritters, fried in appetizing shade, and late at night they get a prussic acid lemonade.â
The Professor Wiley that the vaudeville star referred to was Dr. Harvey Wiley, the chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture and the mastermind behind the Poison Squad. He was a bureaucrat but one far removed from the shy, faceless pen-pusher that description brings to mind. In 1902 the very name of this tall, broad-shouldered chemist struck fear into the hearts of patent medicine manufacturers with their misleading medicinesand nostrums and caused the social reform campaigners of Americaâs growing Progressive movement to swoon.
Wiley grew up on the southern Indiana farm where he was born on October 18, 1844. His pious parents raised him on a diet of bread made from unbolted cornmeal and a brand of fundamentalist Christianity that regarded whistling and fishing on a Sunday as terrible sins. The religious sermons didnât stick. Wiley left home an agnostic, but he did inherit his parentsâ taste for pure, unadulterated food and their zealous sense of righteousness. After leaving the family farm he got a medical degree from Indiana Medical College, but instead of becoming a doctor he turned to chemistry, gaining a second degree from Harvard and becoming Indianaâs state chemist. In 1883 Washington called and he was appointed chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture.
The science of chemistry had progressed in leaps and bounds since the start of the 1800s. The days of Yale asking law students to become professors of an embryonic science were over. Chemistry was now a science that had given humanity the ability to alter the very nature of the world around us. Nowhere was chemistryâs great leap forward as evident as in food and drink. A flood of new artificial flavorings, sweeteners, colorings, and preservatives had made
Candler had had enough. He traveled to New York to find a way of ridding his drink of the troublesome drug. In New York he found Dr. Louis Schaefer, the German founder of the Schaefer Alkaloid Works, who said it was possible to remove all the cocaine from the coca leaf, allowing Candler to keep the coca in his drink while also banishing the cocaine taint. Candler put Schaefer in charge of producing Merchandise No. 5, and Schaefer developed a method for eliminating every last molecule of the cocaine from the coca leaves. By the end of 1903 Candler could confidently declare that Coca-Cola was cocaine free. But if Candler thought he could finally put his drinkâs drug problems behind him, he hadnât reckoned with Dr. Harvey Wiley, the chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, who now had Coca-Cola firmly in his sights.
4
A Snail in a Bottle
On October 1, 1902, a dozen young men sat down to eat a meal laced with benzoic acid and America held its breath. They were the Poison Squad, hired by the federal government to dice with death for the sake of the nationâs health. For five dollars a month they would munch on additive-loaded feasts to find out if they were harmful, and their fate gripped the country.
Newspaper reporters clamored to get the exclusive on their latest toxic dinner. People in soda fountains gossiped about what might happen to these human guinea pigs. The eraâs most famous blackface minstrel showman, Lew Dockstader, composed a ditty in their honor: âIf ever you should visit the Smithsonian Institute, look out that Professor Wiley doesnât make you a recruit. Heâs got a lot of fellows there that tell him how they feel, they take a batch of poison every time they eat a meal. For breakfast they get cyanide of liver, coffin shaped, for dinner, undertakerâs pie, all trimmed with crepe. For supper, arsenic fritters, fried in appetizing shade, and late at night they get a prussic acid lemonade.â
The Professor Wiley that the vaudeville star referred to was Dr. Harvey Wiley, the chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture and the mastermind behind the Poison Squad. He was a bureaucrat but one far removed from the shy, faceless pen-pusher that description brings to mind. In 1902 the very name of this tall, broad-shouldered chemist struck fear into the hearts of patent medicine manufacturers with their misleading medicinesand nostrums and caused the social reform campaigners of Americaâs growing Progressive movement to swoon.
Wiley grew up on the southern Indiana farm where he was born on October 18, 1844. His pious parents raised him on a diet of bread made from unbolted cornmeal and a brand of fundamentalist Christianity that regarded whistling and fishing on a Sunday as terrible sins. The religious sermons didnât stick. Wiley left home an agnostic, but he did inherit his parentsâ taste for pure, unadulterated food and their zealous sense of righteousness. After leaving the family farm he got a medical degree from Indiana Medical College, but instead of becoming a doctor he turned to chemistry, gaining a second degree from Harvard and becoming Indianaâs state chemist. In 1883 Washington called and he was appointed chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture.
The science of chemistry had progressed in leaps and bounds since the start of the 1800s. The days of Yale asking law students to become professors of an embryonic science were over. Chemistry was now a science that had given humanity the ability to alter the very nature of the world around us. Nowhere was chemistryâs great leap forward as evident as in food and drink. A flood of new artificial flavorings, sweeteners, colorings, and preservatives had made