Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site rabbit.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit
From: wolit@rabbit.UUCP (Jan Wolitzky)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: hot peppers, ref Salsa
Message-ID: <2555@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Mar-84 10:32:56 EST
Article-I.D.: rabbit.2555
Posted: Fri Mar  2 10:32:56 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Mar-84 11:01:26 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 13

What Ed Gould had to say about peppers being a nerve stimulant and
not an irritant is pure hogwash.  If you think that blistering is a
nervous system reponse, and not a local phenomenon, just spray your
finger with a local anesthetic and hold a match to it.  It will
blister just fine.  Blistering is also, contrary to Gould, perfectly
adaptive:  it form a nice, watery heat shield between the heat source
and the goodies that lie below skin.  Peppers *ARE* an irritant, and
the burn or pain you feel when you eat them is because of the response
of the nervous system to the histamines released when the surface
cells are damaged by irritating oils.  The same effect is caused by
any damaging substance, like acids or alkalis.

	Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ