Safety
[edit]
See also: Alcohol (chemistry) § Toxicity
Ethanol is very flammable and should not be used around an open flame.
Pure ethanol will irritate the skin and eyes.[138] Nausea, vomiting, and intoxication are symptoms of
ingestion. Long-term use by ingestion can result in serious liver damage.[139] Atmospheric
concentrations above one part per thousand are above the European Union occupational exposure
limits.[139]
History
[edit]
Further information: Liquor
The fermentation of sugar into ethanol is one of the earliest biotechnologies employed by humans.
Ethanol has historically been identified variously as spirit of wine or ardent spirits,[140] and as aqua
vitae or aqua vita. The intoxicating effects of its consumption have been known since ancient times.
Ethanol has been used by humans since prehistory as the intoxicating ingredient of alcoholic
beverages. Dried residue on 9,000-year-old pottery found in China suggests that Neolithic people
consumed alcoholic beverages.[141]
The inflammable nature of the exhalations of wine was already known to ancient natural philosophers
such as Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Theophrastus (c. 371–287 BCE), and Pliny the Elder (23/24–79 CE).
[142]
However, this did not immediately lead to the isolation of ethanol, despite the development of
more advanced distillation techniques in second- and third-century Roman Egypt.[143] An important
recognition, first found in one of the writings attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (ninth century CE), was
that by adding salt to boiling wine, which increases the wine's relative volatility, the flammability of
the resulting vapors may be enhanced.[144] The distillation of wine is attested in Arabic works
attributed to al-Kindī (c. 801–873 CE) and to al-Fārābī (c. 872–950), and in the 28th book of al-
Zahrāwī's (Latin: Abulcasis, 936–1013) Kitāb al-Taṣrīf (later translated into Latin as Liber servatoris).
[145]
In the twelfth century, recipes for the production of aqua ardens ("burning water", i.e., ethanol)
by distilling wine with salt started to appear in a number of Latin works, and by the end of the
thirteenth century it had become a widely known substance among Western European chemists.[146]
The works of Taddeo Alderotti (1223–1296) describe a method for concentrating ethanol involving
repeated fractional distillation through a water-cooled still, by which an ethanol purity of 90% could
be obtained.[147] The medicinal properties of ethanol were studied by Arnald of Villanova (1240–1311
CE) and John of Rupescissa (c. 1310–1366), the latter of whom regarded it as a life-preserving
substance able to prevent all diseases (the aqua vitae or "water of life", also called by John
the quintessence of wine).[148] In China, archaeological evidence indicates that the true distillation of
alcohol began during the Jin (1115–1234) or Southern Song (1127–1279) dynasties.[149] A still has
been found at an archaeological site in Qinglong, Hebei, dating to the 12th century.[149] In India, the
true distillation of alcohol was introduced from the Middle East, and was in wide use in the Delhi
Sultanate by the 14th century.[150]
