Liquor made quicker: alcohol as a synthetic reagent for molecules in anesthesia.

Ethanol was an early anesthetic, and chemists transformed it into better ones. Hypnotic/anesthetic/analgesic molecules prepared from ethanol include barbiturates, benzocaine, chloral hydrate, chloroform, diethyl ether, ethyl chloride, ethylene, etomidate, meperidine, paraldehyde, phenacetin, procaine, tribromoethanol, and urethane. Ethanol was sometimes mixed deliberately with the other anesthetics, and John Snow's inhaled amylene came from the "fusel oil" fraction of rotgut whisky.

[Thujone-attributable effects of absinthe are only an urban legend--toxicology uncovers alcohol as real cause of absinthism]. / Thujon-Wirkungen von Absinth sind nur eine Legende. Toxikologie entlarvt Alkohol als eigentliche Absinthismus-Ursache.

In the discussion about thujone as possible toxic constituent of the wormwood-containing alcoholic beverage absinthe, the dose-response-relationship is frequently ignored. The effects of absinthe are very often attributed only to thujone, an association that is not scientifically proven. Especially the alleged psychotropic effects of thujone are scientifically unproven. However, the question about thujone effects in absinthe is irrelevant, because thujone is contained in both modern commercial absinthes and historic pre-ban products in such low amounts that a pharmacological effect can be excluded per se. The effects of the spirit that are summarized under the term absinthism observed in late 19th century's France, can be explained by chronic alcohol misuse and dependence alone according to today's standards of knowledge. Especially from the perspective of youth and public health protection, an ambiguous and biased reporting about absinthe should be avoided. For example, the alleged antagonistic effects of thujone on the action of ethanol might lead to a trivialization of alcohol-related harms. Scientifically unproven speculations about the influence of certain drinking rituals of absinthe on its toxicity must be rebutted. A return to more evidence and less conjecture in the reporting about absinthe would be desirable.

Alcohol prescription by surgeons in the prevention and treatment of delirium tremens: historic and current practice.

Beer, other alcohol beverages, and IV alcohol are still used to prevent or treat alcohol withdrawal delirium on surgical services. The history of the use of alcohol by surgeons may play a role in its continued use for withdrawal. In this policy survey 32 inpatient hospital pharmacies were called and asked if alcohol was available, if it was used to treat alcohol withdrawal, and the medical specialties that requested it. Recommendations about the use of alcohol were examined in recent textbooks and from those published early in the twentieth century. One half of the 32 hospitals surveyed had alcoholic beverages available for patient use and eleven hospitals used either package alcohol or IV alcohol in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal. Surgeons used alcohol before anesthesia to help patients tolerate procedures, and the use of alcohol for treatment of alcohol withdrawal still appears in the surgical literature. This preliminary survey indicates that some hospitals still provide beverage alcohol for the treatment of alcohol withdrawal and that surgeons are the specialty ordering alcohol for their patients.

Fermenting fruit and the historical ecology of ethanol ingestion: is alcoholism in modern humans an evolutionary hangover?

In the field of addiction research, the possibility of ancestral exposure to psychoactive compounds has generally been excluded. A paleobiological approach to the human diet, however, illustrates the potential utility of historical data in interpreting modern-day addictive behaviors. Low-level dietary exposure to ethanol via ingestion of fermenting fruit has probably characterized the predominantly frugivorous anthropoid lineage for about 40 million years. Potentially adaptive primate behaviors associated with the natural occurrence of ethanol include the olfactory use of ethanol plumes to localize fruit crops, the use of ethanol as an appetitive stimulant to facilitate rapid consumption of transient nutritional resources, and the physiological exploitation of the caloric benefits of ethanol. Such behavioral and energetic advantages probably pertain to all animal taxa that consume fermenting fruit, and may have been retained in modern humans in spite of considerable dietary diversification over the last several million years. In contemporary human environments, excessive consumption of ethanol would then represent maladaptive cooption of ancestrally advantageous behaviors given essentially ad libitum access to a compound otherwise found only within scarce nutritional substrates. Epidemiologically demonstrated health benefits of low-level alcohol consumption are consistent with an ancient and potentially adaptive exposure of primate frugivores to this most common of the psychoactive substances.