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medicines made them less wholesome. Due to the “increased amounts of poisonous and toxic matters in the system,” Wiley testified before Congress, “the general vitality of the body is gradually reduced. . . . Even old age, which is regarded as a natural death, is a result of these toxic activities.” Wiley proved his theories with his celebrated “poison squad,” a group of young men to whom he and his colleagues fed all manner of suspect food additives, including large quantities of boric, sulfuric, and benzoic acid to see if it made them sick. The experiments weren’t exactly scientifically rigorous—lacking, for example, a control group or measures to account for preexisting medical conditions of the unfortunate crew, but the publicity they engendered gave public support to the idea of a new law. Congress passed it on June 30, 1906.

Over the next few years, Wiley went on the attack against blended-whiskey producers and catsup makers (for adding benzoate of soda as a preservative), earning a reputation as a crusading health advocate, if a bit of an arrogant self-promoter. His nemesis, however, would be Coca-Cola. From reports early on that Coke contained cocaine and alcohol, he demanded that a sample be tested. When it came back negative, it hardly dampened his ardor against bringing Coke down. At the same, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, hot against the scourges of alcohol, published pamphlets that—despite Wiley’s tests—railed against Coke as hazardous to children because of its content of cocaine, alcohol, and caffeine.

It was this last ingredient that Wiley would eventually make into the crook that dragged Coke into court. In keeping with his theories of adulterated foods, Wiley argued that “free caffeine” added to products such as Coke was much more harmful and addictive than the caffeine that occurred naturally in coffee and tea, comparing the added substance to opium and cannabis. On this basis, he tried several times to seize Coke shipments to put the company on trial but was constantly overruled by the secretary of agriculture, James Wilson, whom he later blamed for protecting Coke. Finally, when an Atlanta newspaper editor caught wind of the interference, Wilson relented, if only Wiley would try the company in Chattanooga, headquarters of Coke’s largest bottler and, after Atlanta, the territory friendliest to the beverage company. (Other accounts have it that it was Wiley who chose the venue for the trial, in an effort to get it in front of an Eastern Tennessee judge who was known to look kindly on progressive regulation.)

The case went to trial in Chattanooga in March 1911, coinciding with Wiley’s honeymoon with his new bride, feminist Anna Kelton. Officially called The United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, the trial turned on two counts—the unhealthy addition of “free caffeine,” as well as the fact that it was “misbranded” as Coca-Cola, since it contained neither coca leaves nor kola nut. In fact, however, the trial brought out all Coke’s dirty laundry—from government inspectors who testified about the unsanitary conditions of Coke’s factory and the discovery of bug parts in the drink, to medical experts testifying that Coke drove people insane. The evidence presented by the government about the harmful effect of caffeine on humans was equally dubious, relying on flawed experiments of frogs and rabbits; no one from the poison squad made an appearance. In the end, none of it mattered. The entire case hinged upon a technicality when the judge ordered a directed verdict, at Coke’s urging, that Coca-Cola’s formula had always had caffeine, so it couldn’t be considered an additive.

Wiley wasn’t there to see it, having left town a week earlier, perhaps seeing the way the wind was blowing. A year after the trial, he resigned rather than risk having Secretary Wilson force him out. The case wasn’t done, however. Years later, the government appealed it all the way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled it had been wrongly decided and sent it back to the district level. Coke maneuvered to spare