John Pemberton - Wikipedia

On August 16, 1888, John Pemberton, American pharmacist and the inventor of Coca-Cola, died of stomach cancer at the age of 57. From the article:

"In April 1865, Pemberton sustained a saber wound to the chest during the Battle of Columbus. He soon became addicted to the morphine used to ease his pain.[5][6][7]

In 1866, seeking a cure for his addiction, he began to experiment with painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine.[8][9][10] His first recipe was "Dr. Tuggle's Compound Syrup of Globe Flower", in which the active ingredient was derived from the buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), a toxic plant that is common in Alaska.[11] He next began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating a recipe that contained extracts of kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca.[12][13]

According to Coca-Cola historian Phil Mooney, Pemberton's world-famous soda was "created in Columbus, Georgia and carried to Atlanta".[14] With public concern about drug addiction, depression, and alcoholism among war veterans, and "neurasthenia" among "highly-strung" Southern women,[15] Pemberton's "medicine" was advertised as particularly beneficial for "ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration".[16]

In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton had to produce a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca.[17] Pemberton relied on Atlanta drugstore owner-proprietor Willis E. Venable to test, and help him perfect, the recipe for the beverage, which he formulated by trial and error. With Venable's assistance, Pemberton worked out a set of directions for its preparation. He blended the base syrup with carbonated water by accident when trying to make another glassful of the beverage. Pemberton decided then to sell this as a fountain drink rather than a medicine. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time. Although the name refers to the two main ingredients, because of controversy over its cocaine content, The Coca-Cola Company later said that the name was "meaningless but fanciful". Robinson hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. Pemberton made many health claims for his product, touting it as a "valuable brain tonic" that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion, and calm nerves, and marketed it as 'delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating', and 'invigorating.'"