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[Aryn]

I just had one of my miners die of infection, and it occurred to me that dwarves regularly store and use barrels full of ethyl alcohol, a powerful disinfectant. So I was wondering why dwarves wouldn't use alcohol to disinfect wounds and sanitize things as well as drinking it. Lives are at stake after all.

[peskyninja]

their alcohol blood level is so high that it can stop infections,infections in the current version are a bug not a feature. 

[Askot Bokbondeler]

one could still alcohol into purer forms to be used in sanitation and dwarves would drink t when they'd run out of booze, or use booze in sanitation when out of disinfectant grade alcohol

[peskyninja]

Or just use booze for cleaning and drinking.

[Capntastic]

Germ theory didn't even start to happen until the mid 1500s, and disinfectants were much later than that.  Cleaning out wounds with water or whatever happened through history, but only with the knowledge that getting dirt and gunk out of the wound helped it heal better.

[HartLord]

I don't think it's that far a leap of logic for a dwarf to spill some alcohol on an infected wound, and later, when the infection went away, realize maybe the alcohol helped.

Or maybe it is.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I don't know about using alcohol for disinfectant (In the medieval ages, they might have boiled wine for disinfectant), but they could certainly use Quicklime for disinfectant (which medieval monks actually did use).

You know what I would also like? To see medical herbs in the game for disinfectant/painkillers etc. Mind you, it'll probably be the damn elves (and probably humans) who would have the knowledge of that kind of stuff, but there would be nothing preventing your dwarfs from importing that stuff (or taking some herbs and hoping for the best).

[Waparius]

You know what I would also like? To see medical herbs in the game for disinfectant/painkillers etc. Mind you, it'll probably be the damn elves (and probably humans) who would have the knowledge of that kind of stuff, but there would be nothing preventing your dwarfs from importing that stuff (or taking some herbs and hoping for the best).

Well, we have Golden Salve in the game, and soap was in for a while before that got a use.

It would be kind of useful to have more underground herbs to do similar things, as well.

[sockless]

I'm in two minds about this.

One is that it is OOPAT (Out of place and time), so we shouldn't have it. Also, only spirits work in this way, beer would probably just gave the bacteria more stuff to feast on.

The other mind is that it seems to be the sort of things that dwarves would do, even if it doesn't fit the technological period.

I think that it would probably be best if we had it, but maybe with a way of turning it off. It's not too much of a stretch really, not like penicillan or any modern antibiotics.

[onarum]

That would be kinda interesting but not really needed, I mean soap is already very easy to produce, and it solves all infection problems other than bugged nail injuries.

[Dynastia]

Only rum is strong enough to inhibit infections. The wine, beer, etc. would just encourage it.

Medieval folks generally used wadded-up spiderwebs and clumps of dirt they'd just pissed on. It was better than nothing.

[Ovg]

Not "better than nothing". It basically was penicillin. Also piss disinfects just like saliva.

[Alternatecash]

Perhaps medical advances would have a chance of being discovered by legendary medical Dorfs? A strange mood from your resident sawbones might give you a new technique.

[astaldaran]

Perhaps medical advances would have a chance of being discovered by legendary medical Dorfs? A strange mood from your resident sawbones might give you a new technique.

which could then be taught to other medical dwarves and written down so that adventurures could learn it or the book could even be sold to traders.

[Alternatecash]

Exactly. Just as tales of artifacts and battle spread.