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Nobody knows for sure how many buckets of urine Hinnig Brandt kept in his basement.

By some accounts, the 17th century German chemist had more than 50.

He used to collect the urine from his neighbors.

Why?

Well, Brant, like a lot of great minds of his day, was in pursuit of the elusive

philosopher's stone, the legendary substance capable of turning base metals into gold,

and ambitious scientists into very rich men. Maybe it was the color. It certainly wasn't the

smell, but Henneckbrant was convinced that by

distilling human urine, he could somehow create gold. He was wrong, of course, but in a vial

of boiled urine, he discovered something else in 1669. It wasn't the philosopher's Stone, but it was an element that would prove just

as valuable and destructive, phosphorus.

Welcome to Flashback, a podcast from Ozzy. I'm Sean Braswell. Today, our tale of unintended consequences centers on what would become known as the devil's element, phosphorus.

The compound that Henigbrand unleashed would change history in some unexpected ways.

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