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Saccharin, the oldest artificial sweetener, was discovered by accident in 1879, when chemist Constantin Fahlberg went to dinner without washing his hands and found that his bread tasted sweet. He traced the taste to a compound from his work on coal tar.

Johns Hopkins University, 1879

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The story behind the card

Fahlberg was working in Ira Remsen's chemistry laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. By his own later account, he went back and tasted what was in the vessels on his bench until he found the sweet one, benzoic sulfimide, something no laboratory would allow today. The two men published the discovery together in 1879 and 1880, but in 1884 Fahlberg patented it alone, named it saccharin and soon opened a factory in Germany. Remsen never forgave him. Saccharin is several hundred times sweeter than sugar and has no calories; it came into wide use during the sugar shortages of the First World War, and later among dieters. Aspartame and sucralose were also found when chemists tasted something by chance.

Türkçe oku
Bilinen en eski yapay tatlandırıcı olan sakarin, 1879'da bir rastlantı sonucu bulundu. Kimyager Constantin Fahlberg ellerini yıkamadan akşam yemeğine oturmuş ve ekmeğinin tatlı geldiğini fark etmişti; tadın izini sürünce kömür katranı üzerine yaptığı çalışmadaki bir bileşiğe ulaştı.
Johns Hopkins Üniversitesi, 1879

Fahlberg, Baltimore'daki Johns Hopkins Üniversitesi'nde Ira Remsen'in kimya laboratuvarında çalışıyordu. Sonradan anlattığına göre laboratuvara dönüp tezgâhındaki kapların içindekileri tek tek tattı ve sonunda tatlı olanı buldu: benzoik sülfimit. Bugün hiçbir laboratuvar buna izin vermez. İki araştırmacı buluşu 1879 ve 1880'de birlikte yayımladı, ama Fahlberg 1884'te patenti tek başına aldı, maddeye sakarin adını verdi ve kısa süre sonra Almanya'da bir fabrika kurdu. Remsen onu hiçbir zaman affetmedi. Şekerden yüzlerce kat tatlı olan ve kalori içermeyen sakarin, Birinci Dünya Savaşı'ndaki şeker kıtlığında, daha sonra da diyet yapanlar arasında yaygınlaştı. Aspartam ve sükraloz da kimyagerlerin rastlantıyla bir şeyi tatmasıyla bulundu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Saccharin
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