so as to put so much vodka into his system, no germs would survive
I know this is just an aside, and not the main point of your story, but for everyone watching from home, drinking alcohol actively sabotages your body’s ability to fight off infections.
We use alcohol to disinfect things, but only between 60-80%. Higher than that, and there’s not enough water to effectively deliver the alcohol molecules to the cell membranes where they’ll do their work. Lower than 50%, and the alcohol molecules aren’t concentrated enough to effectively destroy most bacterial membranes. That means pouring regular old 80 proof/40% vodka isn’t going to effectively disinfect things on contact.
And even if you’re drinking high proof spirits, beyond the 40% minimum of most vodkas, once it’s in the body it gets diluted down at least 2 orders of magnitude, to where the blood alcohol concentration of anything under the coma-inducing/deadly 0.4% is basically negligible in terms of damaging the cells of unwanted microbes. But while your body works to rid your body of that poison, your immune system is weakened, and will do a worse job of preventing those unwanted microbes from taking hold in your system.
Great story. Sorry about the end, though.
I know this is just an aside, and not the main point of your story, but for everyone watching from home, drinking alcohol actively sabotages your body’s ability to fight off infections.
We use alcohol to disinfect things, but only between 60-80%. Higher than that, and there’s not enough water to effectively deliver the alcohol molecules to the cell membranes where they’ll do their work. Lower than 50%, and the alcohol molecules aren’t concentrated enough to effectively destroy most bacterial membranes. That means pouring regular old 80 proof/40% vodka isn’t going to effectively disinfect things on contact.
And even if you’re drinking high proof spirits, beyond the 40% minimum of most vodkas, once it’s in the body it gets diluted down at least 2 orders of magnitude, to where the blood alcohol concentration of anything under the coma-inducing/deadly 0.4% is basically negligible in terms of damaging the cells of unwanted microbes. But while your body works to rid your body of that poison, your immune system is weakened, and will do a worse job of preventing those unwanted microbes from taking hold in your system.