Women have less alcohol dehydrogenase in their stomachs than men, and so more alcohol enters the systemic circulation. Alcohol is metabolised by alcohol dehydrogenase to aldehyde, which is metabolised to CO 2 and water by aldehyde dehydrogenase. So if you want to get drunk quickly, take your gin with tonic or your whisky with Highland spring water (but not if it’s a high class malt-that would be sacrilege) and do it on an empty stomach. The rate of absorption depends on the concentration, with a maximum at about 15%, and is delayed by food. It is well absorbed throughout the gut, including the stomach. It is useful to know a little about the pharmacokinetics of alcohol. When alcohol was characterised chemically and named ethyl alcohol (ethanol), the term was applied to similar compounds in the series, such as methyl alcohol (methanol) and propyl alcohol (propanol). Antimonious ores were sometimes confused with lead ores, and alquifou was the name of a Cornish lead ore that looked like antimony, used by potters to give a green glaze to earthenware.īy extension, any fine powder produced by sublimation became known as al-koh’l, and the idea was further extended to fluids produced by sublimation or distillation, as in what Paracelsus called “alcool vini”, “alcohol of wine”, or just alcohol for short. This may have been connected with kohl, in Greek πλατυόϕθαλμον (literally “wide-eye”) or στίβι or στίμμι, which is the same as the Latin stibium, again powdered antimony. The Greek word for any salve, and particularly eye salve, was κολλούριον (incidentally a dimunitive of the word for a pessary or suppository), in English collyrium. Kohl was used as a cosmetic for blackening the eyelids, and the habit is even mentioned in the Bible: “kakhalt ainayikh”, you painted your eyes (Ezekiel 23:40), from the protoSemitic root kx̣l, powdered antimony. At this time of year, well at any time of year really, a look at alcohol may not go amiss.Īlcohol was originally what you put on your eyes, powder of antimony stibnite, antimony trisulphide, or black antimony, known to the Arabs as al-koh’l, from kohl, meaning paint or stain.
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