How much alcohol does it take to sanitize a scalpel?

[Baitball Blogger]

You see it in movies all the time. They pour alcohol on a scalpel before cutting the patient open. Really, though. What is the longest you need to dip something in alcohol to sterilize it?

[rug]

1. About a fifth.

You won't give a shit how filthy it is by then.

[Locut0s]

4. Lol I like the way you think.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Or you'll forget why you wanted the scalpel sterilized in the first place.

[siligut]

2. Movies do it wrong on purpose

So people won't get any ideas of trying to use them as instruction videos. To sterilize instruments they use heat, I used to know this stuff, but it seems like it was for a few hours and the temp was greater than 350 F. But, scalpels are not reused and come sterile from the manufacturer.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Unless we're talking about the CSI series, surely?

I always thought those tried to keep the details accurate.

[Chan790]

3. Assuming it's pure alcohol?

A few seconds at most. It's fairly-instantaneous at killing single-cell organisms between being desiccant and disrupting the structural integrity of cell-membranes. Closer to a minute for something closer to liquor in terms of proof. Beer OTOH you could wait all day and not get a sterile instrument.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. That's reassuring.

That's not a good one to mislead the audience, as in the way the heart is always depicted as being on the far left side.

[cliffordu]

9. Not what my ex wife said

She said after a couple I was little better than a sterile instrument....

[hunter]

8. Don't forget to sanitize the skin you are cutting too...

... there are a lot of things living on your skin that you wouldn't want living inside you.