External Use of Wound Alcohol – Does It Get “internal” When I Put It on an Open Wound?
Question by UrsulaFence: External use of wound alcohol – Does it get “internal” when I put it on an open wound?
My boyfriend had an open wound the other day (something small, bleeding), and I suggested to put wound alcohol on it to disinfect it before he’d put a band aid or something similar on it.
Now, he argued that he can’t do that because it says on the bottle that it is “for external use only” and he said it would get into his bloodstream and thus would be “internal”.
I’m not saying that you should generally put alcohol on open wounds, it even says in the description that you shouldn’t do that. And yes, some of it would get into his bloodstream, that’s obvious too.
My actual question is, though, if that would be “internal use” as such, if it just gets into your bloodstream through a wound. Doesn’t “internal use” generally refer to ingesting it?
I’d like to add, that this question is of a semantic nature, it’s NOT about what to use on a wound. It’s about the theoretical background only.
I’d probably be better off asking a medic about this.
Best answer:
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