IN 1959, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES consumed a volume of soft drinks equal to almost 200 bottles per person. Presently, this rate of per-capita consumption is even higher, a pattern of growth which has characterized the soft-drink industry almost without interruption since its beginnings. Last year, carbonated beverage manufacturers sold 1,500,000,000 cases, each of 24 bottles, for $1,500,000,000. With allowable variances of high and low periods, despite wars, recessions, inflations and depressions, the industry has grown steadily and continuously for over 100 years-at a rate averaging out to about five percent each year. And all this may be said to have begun with man's search for pure water. Prior to 1800, pure water was regarded as the only refreshing liquid. For centuries, the search for pure water-with no disease and death-carrying germs-was a constant quest, often determining the moving and settling of whole tribes and nations. About 1800, artificially carbonated waters were advertised and sold in England. Though not conclusive, evidence indicates that the addition of flavors, such as fruit juices, ginger ale, or vanilla extracts, to artificially carbonated water, was an American innovation, first compounded and dispensed for immediate consumption -the beginning of the fountain drink. Later, the successful bottling of waters of the famous Saratoga Springs in New York, previously available only at the Springs, led to experiments with the bottling of flavored drinks in the United States. The earliest available records show the appearance of carbonated beverage bottling establishments in the United States about 1835. It did not take long for the industry to be officially noted by the U. S. Census. In 1850, 64 non-alcoholic beverage bottling organizations were reported. Aggregate production for the year was valued at $760,000, and total capital at $228,650. By 1875, 512 bottling plants were making products valued at $4,740,000, a figure exceeded today by many individual plants. In the Nineteenth Century touring medicine-man shows criss-crossed the nation, offering entertainment and selling cure-all concoctions that promised to cure almost everything; many of the present-day patent medicines got their start during this era. In 1880, with no real market for any refreshment, except pure water, the soft drink industry got its initial foothold through the already established patent medicine field. Jamaica ginger, herbs and roots, the coca leaf, cola nut and citric acids-already in use in patent medicines-were blended with pure carbonated water and sugar, and sold oftentimes for both their refreshing and their therapeutic values. Thus, a new industry was born, featuring cure-alls containing magic ingredients, advertised as delicious. This was the prevailing atmosphere into which PepsiCola made its entrance at the turn of the century in New Bern, North Carolina-and, of course, at the soda fountain. Many other drinks featuring the flavoring of extract of cola nut also came into being in this period of 50 to 75 years ago. For instance, Coca-Cola was first sold in Georgia in 1886.