ABSTRACT
A.L.Fox, a chemist at DuPont in the United States, discovered taste blindness in 1931. While he was synthesizing phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), some of it flew into the air; a colleague commented on its bitter taste, which Fox had not noticed. Asking others to taste it led to a brief announcement in the Science News Letter (1): 60% tasted it; 40% did not. Fox then collaborated with Blakeslee, a prominent geneticist of the day, to organize an exhibit at the 1931 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Attendees tasted PTC crystals and pulled the appropriate lever on a voting machine: 65.5% found the crystals bitter, 28% found them tasteless, and 6.5% perceived other qualities. Subsequent family studies (2,3) suggested that PTC tasting is a dominant genetic trait.
