11-03-2015, 03:22 AM
Anocxu Wrote:That's a common misconception. .
If he gargled an alcohol based antiseptic. . Yes..
But if he ingested alcohol. . It will slow the production of anti- bodies needed to fight the infection. .
So in other words a see saw effect. .
Kinda like how drinking a shot of rum if you have the flu makes some people feel better.. and some worse. .
Ethanol is ethanol anywhere, beverages or antiseptics, concentration being the only difference you'd find. Antiseptics may have other things than ethanol, naturally.
Ethanol is toxic enough for you to not worry about trivial things like antibody production because entire cells are dying, yours and your uninvited infectious guest.
(antibodies do not fight the infection btw, they mark the pathogen as a target for the immune cells and molecular effectors that do)
We are probably saying the same things here.
What I said is that it is counterproductive to the purpose, but make no mistake: Bacteria are dying by the thousand upon contact with it.