Let's get into some history. Capsaicin was first extracted in 1816 by Christian Fridrich. Further work by John Clough Thresh led to its naming in 1876, but it wasn´t until 1898 that Karl Micko isolated the compound in pure crystalline form. A century later, in 1997, David Julius discovered and cloned the cellular receptor for capsaicin, and brought a new level of understanding on how capsaicin works. We´ll get more into this science in the second part of this blog.