Wilbur Scoville Pharmaceutical Association and in 1929 he received the Remington Honor Medal. Scoville also received an honorary Doctor of Science from Columbia University in 1929. He won the following awards from the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA): Wilbur Scoville Wilbur Lincoln Scoville (January 22, 1865 – March 10, 1942) was an American pharmacist best known for his creation of the "Scoville Organoleptic Test", now standardized as the Scoville scale. He devised the test and scale in 1912 while working at the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company to measure pungency, "spiciness" or "heat", of various chili peppers. Scoville was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He married
Scoville scale experienced with eating hot chilis. In the Scoville organoleptic test, an exact weight of dried pepper is dissolved in alcohol to extract the heat components (capsaicinoids), then diluted in a solution of sugar water. Decreasing concentrations of the extracted capsaicinoids are given to a panel of five trained tasters, until a majority (at least three) can no longer detect the heat in a dilution. The heat level is based on this dilution, rated in multiples of 100 SHU. A weakness of the Scoville organoleptic test is its imprecision due to human subjectivity, depending on the taster's palate and number of