SPMLs & EtOH

Kill fungus? OK. Tuberculosis goober on a surface. Phenol is good. Nerves? Noooooo. Why not? We don’t want what follows nerves made dead, even if by “an” alcohol. Something interesting about “ the alcohols”, they are mostly all poisons. Well, one major exception is “ alcohol ”. Only hydroxylated ==> ethane [ C-C-OH ] is called, simply, “alcohol”. It has many alternate names, though.

Including: Booze, vodka, ethyl alcohol, Cologne spirit, absolute alcohol, EtOH, methylcarbinol, hair of the dog (borrowed from a Rabies rx), spiritus fermenti, the -OH in hang-OH_ver, ...

What does ‘alcohol’ normally do? It is actually a food. It can be used the way sugar gets used as long as not in excessive amounts. Kept in bounds, it is an in-between or offshoot step in anaerobic metabolic cellular chemistry and consumed in the gut where hungry bacteria can drink it. Our use of ethanol (‘alcohol’) is much much simpler. Ethanol dissolves fatty greases (most alcohols do that – look on the Windex label). Myelin is a wrap of greasy fat around certain nerves (not all nerves) in order to give the myelinated nerves higher speeds. The body’s chosen high speed nerves are used to run ahead of other signals – up to 15 times faster. These are GREAT conduits of problems as well. They can deliver too many signals, too fast, and for too long. A tsunami of signals can release neurotransmitter faster than our nerve/muscle connections can remove, causing muscle to not let go, from twitch to unremitting clench. Terminology technicality is needed here: Signal ‘amplitude’ (voltage) of a nerve signal has very little meaning as voltage is only determined by the nerve’s diameter. Where and how many signals are the main things. Buggering myelin puts a slow spot (speed bump) in the nerve’s conduction where many fast flying signals pile up. They coalesce and come out the other