Harry Hollingworth, a young Barnard College professor, conducted pioneering psychopharmacology research in 1911 into the effects of a food additive, caffeine, on behalf of the Coca-Cola Company, which was being sued by the federal government for adding an injurious ingredient to a food.
Hollingworth found no deleterious effects of caffeine, but the lawsuit known as the “United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola” was dismissed on a technicality. Before agreeing to do the research, Hollingworth insisted that that his experiments were to be double-blind and that he was to be free to publish the results, whatever they were.
References:
- biography on Wikipedia
- short history of Coca-Cola trial
- Benjamin LT Jr, Rogers AM, Rosenbaum A.: Coca-Cola, caffeine, and mental deficiency: Harry Hollingworth and the Chattanooga trial of 1911. J Hist Behav Sci. 1991 Jan;27(1):42-55. (abstract)
- Lucy Benjamin: Pop Psychology: The Man Who Saved Coca-Cola
US v Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca Cola
