His father, a Harvard graduate, was a lawyer, editor, judge, first president of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company and United States attorney for Massachusetts between 1873 and 1886.

[1] Sanger's three elder brothers attended Harvard before him: John White, class of 1870; William Thompson, 1871, and George Partridge, 1874.

After obtaining his Ph.D., Sanger became an assistant in the Harvard chemistry department, working with Henry B. Hill, who "was his Chemical father.

[4] In 1891, Sanger published a paper that stemmed from work he had begun with Hill during his doctoral study: "The Quantitative Determination of Arsenic by the Berzelius-Marsh Process, especially as Applied to the Analysis of Wallpaper and Fabrics.

Using his improved analytical methods, he showed that arsenic levels found in human tissues and excreta were directly correlated with exposure to arsenic-containing materials.

He thus confirmed the discovery by the Italian chemist Gosio that mold growing on an arsenic-containing substrate generated an arsenical gas the arsenine-forming fungus could live even on the painted surface, its cells reaching into the underlying wallpaper.

"In attacking the subject he determined, with characteristic love, of truth, to place it on a secure experimental foundation by looking for arsenic in the excreta of people suffering from the disorders commonly attributed to poison from wallpapers.

[1] The last years of Sanger's life were plagued with an undiagnosed illness — thought either to be related to a nervous cause or an unknown heart condition.

"[6] In its obituary, the Boston Globe said, "The death of Professor Sanger takes from the Harvard faculty one of its most distinguished scholars and teachers.