Of all scientific discoveries, the discovery of the uses of saccharine—the artificial sweetner—must be one of the most unsanitary.

The chemical saccharin was first discovered in the laboratory of Ira Remsen, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, in 1878. Remsen allowed a Russian chemist called Constantin Fahlberg to work in his lab, and to conduct his own researched.

One day in 1878, after a long day of working in the lab, Fahlberg went home to eat dinner with his wife. Mrs. Fahlberg had made her usual homemade bread that night, but Mr. Fahlberg noticed a difference in it that night—it was much notably sweeter. After confirming with his wife that she had not, in fact, changed the recipe for the bread, Fahlberg realized that he must have transferred some kind of chemical from the lab to his dinner table. (Obviously, Fahlberg was not a huge proponent of personal hygiene, or even washing his hands after working with dangerous chemicals.)

Okay, so maybe they weren’t this dirty.

The next day, Fahlberg entered the lab with one purpose—to discover the sweet substance that had improved the quality of his food. And the only way to do this was by tasting all of his lab equipment (which apparently he had also not washed). Every beaker, dish, and vial, Fahlberg tasted to try and find his sweet chemical. Eventually, after much unsanitary testing, Fahlberg recognized the sweet flavor of a beaker containing benzoic sulfinide.

This lucky—yet unsanitary—accident resulted in the first viable alternative to cane sugar, and led to those little pick packets that we see every time we go out to eat. Sweet’N Low is now one of the most popular substitutes for natural sugar, and is available is almost every eating establishment. Without Fahlberg’s lack of concern for personal hygiene, and his own safety, the world would never have known the food-related used of saccharine.