Preface

• Author: James G. Wigmore
• Pages: 25-29

Preface  xxv

Preface

Alcohol (ethanol, ethyl alcohol) is the most widespread drug involved

in medicolegal cases, including civi l, criminal, and postmortem aspec ts.

Alcohol is also a unique drug in t hat it is a simple molecule that is water

soluble and has been extensively studied for over  years. Alcohol can

be easily understood by the nonscientist, a lthough there are numerous

popular misconceptions that th is book aims to rectify.

I have been a forensic toxicologist specializing in alcohol for more

than  years. Dur ing that time, I have developed a forensic alcohol toxi-

cology database that is currently in EndNote and consists of over ,

human studies. These published studies have been valuable and import-

ant in litigation and should form the basis of the exper t opinion.

I have chosen to include in this book approximately  human

studies that cover a wide range of forensic alcohol toxicology issues

from over  scientif‌ic journals written mainly in English; however,

I have included some translated German and Swedish art icles as well.

The studies are divided into chapters and sections according to various

topics such as the ef‌fects of alcohol on driving (Chapter ), breath alco-

hol analysis (Chapter ) or blood alcohol analysis (Chapter ).

Each reference or study has a unique f‌ive-digit number assigned to

it: the f‌irst digit indicates the chapter, the next two digits indicate the

section, and the last two dig its show where the reference appears in that

section. For example, reference number  is in Chapter , section

, and is the sixth reference in that sect ion. If you look up that refer-

ence you will f‌ind the following: