naturalplastic wrote:
My guess is that both Daniel W., and Matrix, are right.
My guess is that, like most brands of soda pop, Dr. Pepper was originally sold as patent medicine in the late 19th Century as an actual medical remedy for something or other.
Then around 1920 the government cracked down with laws to sort out real medicine from quack medicine.
So ...the Coke company had to take the cocaine out of CocaCola, and Dr. Pepper had to take the period out of his name, or get busted for practicing medicine without a license.
And ...there is a curious vestige of the drink's charlatan medicine past, not only in its name, but in that clock face thing they still have on their bottles today. That circle (or triangle) with the "ten, two, and six" numbers on it. Those were the times of day you were supposed to drink it. As if it were prescription medicine- that needed specific dosage instructions!
They still even SANG the line "drink it ...at ten two and six" in their TV spots when I was a kid in the 1960s.
Dr Pepper was invented by a Waco, Texas pharmacist in the 1800's.Dr Pepper was possibly named after a real life doctor but we will never know for sure.I love Dr Pepper.I heard the period was taken out of the name possibly because of a bad font in some of the early advertising.I think I read that the period was dropped in about 1950 but I could be wrong.