The Invention of Coca-Cola: John Pemberton's Legacy

The man who invented Coca-Cola was John Pemberton, born in 1833 in Knoxville, Georgia, eighty miles away. Sometimes known as 'Doctor' Pemberton, he settled in Atlanta in 1869. In 1885, he registered a trademark for something called 'French Wine Coca-Cola Ideal Nerve and Tonic Stimulant.' A few years later, Pemberton recruited the services of a bookkeeper named Frank M. Robinson, who not only had a good head for figures but also a keen sense of marketing. In 1886, a year in which Pemberton was experimenting with different ingredients and formulas, Robinson suggested a name change to 'Coca-Cola.' It was a modification of his 'French Wine Coca-Cola,' and while the end product tasted awful, Pemberton had thrown in some extract of cola nut and a few other oils, blending the mixture in used beer bottles. Robinson, with his glowing bookkeeper's script, presented a label on which 'Coca-Cola' was written in the fashion that it is still renowned.

Pemberton promoted Coca-Cola as a headache cure, especially for people whose headache could be traced to over-indulgence of the night before. One morning late in 1886, one such victim dragged himself into an Atlanta drugstore and asked for a dose of Coca-Cola. Druggists customarily stirred a teaspoonful of syrup into a glass of lazy, lukewarm soda water. Instead, the man on duty mixed the syrup with some soda water, which was close at hand. The suffering customer perked up almost at once, and word quickly spread that the best Coca-Cola was a fizzy one.

48. Which of the following was unique to Frank M. Robinson, working with Pemberton's Company?

A. Ability to work with numbers.

The answer is A. Ability to work with numbers. While Robinson was also known for his marketing skills, the passage emphasizes his accounting ability, stating he had a 'good head for figures'.