The discovery of saccharin began with dirty hands and ended with a broken partnership. | Ancient Media

In February 1879 at Johns Hopkins University, chemist Constantin Fahlberg spent a long day synthesizing coal tar derivatives in a lab led by director Ira Remsen. Later that evening at dinner, Fahlberg licked his dirty hands and tasted an unusually sweet bread roll. He realized he had unwittingly ingested a compound he had created earlier that day. This accidental discovery led him to develop a substance later named Saccharin, which was hundreds of times sweeter than sugar. Although Remsen initia