very silly question about meths

In message , Andy R writes

One could ask the same question of many herbal remedies

In message , Bob Eager writes

Metaldehyde IIRC

"Steve Firth" wrote | > It is hard to make ethanol 100% and harder to keep it there, you | > have to use drying resins etc in the bottle. So we use 95% for | > most things. | Yes, same here or was when I last worked with wet stuff on a bench. You | have to watch out for the sugar content of the 95% stuff though.

I was going to say that if you're diabetic you probably shouldn't be drinking 95% alcohol anyway ...

Owain

Lighting Tilly lamps.

Used to be sold under the name META and was useful if ground up and mixed with bran as slug bait/killer

In conjunction with a small wad of cotton wool, Meths is dabbed on the skin prior to an injection, probably to sterilise the skin.

Methylated spirits is still widely available in the UK.

Steve.

Eeek !

OK, so I regularly do this before slicing my flesh open with some mis-placed wood-slicing implement. But it hurts like a bastard - the pyridine. If you're planning to sterilise some skin, use surgical spirit (which doesn't have half the crap in it).

Med students

I bet he won't get away with that for very long.

Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}

I might be wrong about this, but I understood that in a war situation urine might be used as a sterilising solution by soldiers in the field. I can't think of a solution that might have more crap in it!

PoP

Crock o' sh*t, I'm afraid ;-) One of those myths propagated through the confusion between the true statement "[healthy] urine is sterile" - i.e. there's no bacteria or other disease-causing organisms in it, unless you have an infection of the urinary tract - and the utterly baseless idea that it has some sterilis*ing* properties, i.e. that it can kill bacteria. The vague germ of truth (ho ho) is that given the choice between washing a wound with muddy and maybe bloody puddle water, and washing it with fresh piss, the latter would be less likely to cause further infection. But smarter still would be to dress the wound with relatively clean clothing ("soldier! Hand me your singlet!") and get the medical orderlies to pick up the injured...

Urine is sterile (for muddy-field values of sterile). But it has no sterilising properties.

It's also good for jellyfish stings - but I'll leave that one to the Courtney Cox fanclub....

As one who has blown themslevs up with petrol, that sounds far more like it than meths.

Alcohols ARE dangerous, but mainly because the flame lacks soot and is almost invisible in daylight.

Hot alcohol vapout will ignite - try a goodgle search on teh eath of John Foulston (Foulsom) who used to own Brands Hatch curcuiot - who was burnt to death when a methanol fuelled car caught fire. He never noticed till it was too late.

However petrol is far more dangerous, because it actually detonates. Well alomost. It flashes over. Methanol and ethanol seem far slower to propagate flame.

Strictly that is surgical spirit, and doesn't have the blue dye in it. 'Methylated' is methanol and ethanol and the dye.

Not sure if surgical has methanol or not. Certainly 'pure' ethanol is used in hospitals - mainly by interns looking for cheap hooch according to urban legend.

Yes.

It was highly efective against Chlorine gas.

And, actually, its full of nutrient, but relatively sterile when passed

- if that is all teh water you have, its a heap better than nothing.

What on earth were you doing to those dustbins -whilst everyone else was stood standing still at the cinema, that required meths?

I knew of one printing company where the apprentices were sometimes subjected to initiation using methylated spirits. Unbeknown to them meths was put into a washing up liquid bottle and then squeezed under the darkroom door at great force and subsequently lit from the outside while the poor lad was attempting to develop his film.

The result was one briefly scared photo developer as the darkroom was instantly filled with flame and enough light to fog his film.

Apparently the flames burnt out in seconds and left no trace whatsoever leaving the apprentice to explain, which of course no one believed him.

Sick or what..

Steve.

Could well be that hospitals use surgical spirit instead of meths but I remember seeing blue in the bottle just before I received the needle, (It all went dark after that, ;-)

AFAIK surgical spirit was always a clear colour whereas methylated spirits can be either clear or blue.

Clear meths was always cheaper than the blue meths but you could only seem to find the blue stuff on the shelves, Clear meths was also obtainable in huge quantities, The printing trade used gallons of it.

I have another injection due soon, Think I'll ask :)

Steve.

I'm glad someone else had heard of it. I was beginning to wonder if the old memory was failing.

Colin Bignell