[MASSMAIL]How to reference a DB with a period in its name ?

I have a DB named "thedb", which has a schema called "theschem" which has a table called "thetab".  In a perl/DBI script, I am able to work with the table by referencing it as... "thedb.theschem.thetab" as in... "delete from thedb.theschem.thetab where col1=1"

No problem (so far...)

New DB now has a name "thedb.v1" (notice the "."), the schem and table are the same as above.  But now I'm getting a syntax error presumably because of that "." introduced in the DB name.

I tried encapsulating the DB name in double quotes (no good), single quotes (still no good) escaping with '\' (no good), escaping with ".." (no good). 

Is there a way I can reference the DB which has the "." in it's name ?

v11.5 on linux (I know, way past time to upgrade)

Thanks in Advance !