Coca-Cola Was Intended to Be Medicine
Invented in 1886, Coca-Cola was intended to be a “patent medicine” and did contain small traces of cocaine (legal at the time) which came in the form of an extract from the coca leaf which inspired the first half of the soda’s name. The “cola” part came from the kola nuts where the beverage sourced all of its caffeine. Among the soda’s “medicinal” qualities was the belief that it could cure headaches, end morphine addiction, and reverse impotence.