ABSTRACT
Ethyl alcohol or ethanol, which is responsible for the great majority of the effects of alcoholic beverages, is a short-chain alcohol, and from its polar hydroxyl group projects a carbon chain only two atoms long. It shares its pharmacological actions with other alcohols which have longer carbon chains, and which tend to be more potent. The simplicity of these molecules and the similarity between their effects and those of general anaesthetics, which also have simple, but dissimilar, structures, suggests that they may act in a simple physicochemical way rather than by influencing specific neurotransmitter receptors (general review see Seeman, 1972). The relationship between lipid solubility and potency of the alcohols and general anaesthetics has led to the hypothesis that these compounds enter the lipid of cell membranes and exert their actions at this site.
