Jöns Jacob Berzelius
Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele was the first person to isolate lactic acid in 1780 from sour milk. The name reflects the "lact-" combining form derived from the Latin word "lac", which means milk. In 1808, Jöns Jacob Berzelius discovered that lactic acid (actually -lactate) also is produced in muscles during exertion. Its structure was established by Johannes Wislicenus in 1873.