Saccharin
This now widely used artificial sweetener, found in everything from drinks, to candies, cookies, and even medicines, has actually a longer history than you might first think and its discovery was entirely down to bad hygiene practices.
Its first production goes way back to 1879, when Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg was working on the derivatives of coal tar in a laboratory at the recently founded Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
He had been working with the compound benzoic sulfimide and had accidentally spilled some onto his hands. Forgetting (or just not caring) to wash his hands, he would be eating some bread when he noticed the sweet taste.
By 1884, Fahlberg was working in New York City when he applied for patents in a number of countries for a substance he would name saccharin. Two years later, mass production began at a factory in Magdeburg, Germany and would soon make Fahlberg an extremely wealthy man.
