| Have any chemicals been ingested accidentally since 1940? Sure! Are trained chemists with PhDs in the subject working with complex synthesis and dangerous chemicals in the habit, from 1929 to present day, of putting those things in their mouths? Awwww heck no. And 1940 is near the point we cracked the atom... we knew oodles about dangerous chemical and safe handling practices. Accidents will happen, but the (speculative) fiction we are discussing here is Albert Hoffman intentionally eating LSD and lying about it :) ---- Saccharin, the oldest artificial sweetener, was accidentally discovered in 1879 by researcher Constantine Fahlberg -- Fahlberg was working with coal, and had no PhD AFAICT. Cyclamate was discovered in 1937 at the University of Illinois by graduate student Michael Sveda. Sveda was working in the lab on the synthesis of anti-fever medication. He put his cigarette down on the lab bench, and, when he put it back in his mouth, he discovered the sweet taste of cyclamate -- a student, smoking in his messy lab Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame as an intermediate step in generating a tetrapeptide of the hormone gastrin, for use in assessing an anti-ulcer drug candidate.[65] He discovered its sweet taste when he licked his finger, which had become contaminated with aspartame, to lift up a piece of paper -- an actual chemist, but working with something with a well known composition and known to be relatively harmless |