chilis

[Dave Bates]

> 
> I believe that this is an older measurment that was used before the
> capsicum could be quantitated.  It seems to me that the Smithsonian Mag
> wrote an article on chili's about 2 years ago that described a new, less
> subjective unit based on the amount of capsicum produced in a specific
> chile.  Could be called a C unit or Capsicum Unit or something like that.
> 
> That article also compared the rating (I don't remember whether it was in
> C units or Skovills) of the jalepeno (about 5000 units) and a habenero
> (>500,000 units I think).
> 
> *********************************************************************Stephen R. Lasky, Ph.D.
> Roger Williams Medical Center/Brown University
> Phone: 401-456-6572       Fax: 401-456-6569       e-mail: Stephen_Lasky at brown.edu
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> "To me at least, 'Yuck' doesn't capture the full essence of death by
> neurotoxin."   -Dick Dunn
> *********************************************************************

That should be capsaicin, not capsicum. Regularly used in physiology
for denervating sensory afferents or something.

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Dave Bates PhD                                     Tel: 916 752-7081
Postdoctoral Researcher                            Fax: 916 758-2554 
Dept of Human Physiology                         email:
dobates at ucdavis.edu
University of California at Davis                drink: anything
Davis, California 95616, USA            No I don't have a sense of
humour 
                                                now buy me a beer      
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