Hands-on Activity:
Painkilling Candy

United States Patent #5,788,982 was issued to a Yale Medical student named Wolffe Nadoolman and a Yale medical school professor named Dr. Linda Bartoshuk. Their invention was a taffy that contained small doses of capsaicin, the compound that makes chilli peppers hot. The candy was designed to be used to treat the mouth sores that can occur as side-effects when using certain cancer chemotherapy drugs. Though not yet approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration, the candy invented by this student-teacher team brings us full-circle in our use of peppers to treat pain.

If you've read our story Salsa Anagesica you'll know that Nadoolman and Bartoshuk are not the first people to administer capsiacin in candy form. Nor will they be the last to experiment with capsaicin as a pain remedy, as much research remains to be done in this field, and the drug's possibilities are vast. If you're planning on growing up to be a scientist who figures out how to make strong and safe painkillers from capsaicin, you might want to start by making your own painkilling capsaicin candy, not too different from the kind Xitaxlican would have made so long ago, that is, if she weren't a fictional character.

Materials 1 cup sugar ¾ cup light corn syrup cup water 1 Tbs. cornstarch 2 Tbs. butter or margarine 1 tsp. salt 2 tsp. vanilla ½ tsp. cayenne pepper

Apparatus 2 quart saucepan stove or hotplate wax paper

Procedure

In 2 quart saucepan, add sugar, corn syrup, water, cornstarch, butter, and salt.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly till hard ball stage (124°C, 256°F).

Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and pepper.

When mixture is cool enough to handle, butter hands and pull candy until satiny and stiff. Pull into long strips, cut into 1" pieces, and wrap with wax paper.

For more information, at other Web sites...

United States Patent 5,788,982 — Wolffe Nadoolman and Linda Bartoshuk's patent describing their painkilling candy.