Saccharin was first discovered in 1879 when a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University found his bread extra sweet one night and figured that something from the lab must have followed him home. Incredibly, he set about to tasting nearly everything in his lab--and lived to find o-benzoic sulfimide--saccharin by another name. Chance not only favors the trained mind, but in this case, it favored a man brave enough to lick everything in sight till he could trace the source of his discovery.