Embalming fluid

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Someone on another forum said, "Alcohol can be a preservative if applied in sufficient quantities"

And I replied with, "Well Egyptians did invent alcohol. For all we know embalming fluid is really just alcohol."

Of course it's all tongue-in-cheek humor but this got me thinking what if ancient Egyptian embalming fluid was nothing more than very strong alcohol? Back then they didn't have laws telling them what they could make. For all we know their stuff could have been 500 proof! Perhaps strong enough to "embalm" a man.

formaldehyde

all i know about it is that i had to fix lab specimens with it in the OR, and it stank to heaven. in the hospital lab one day, i found the medical lab technician being treated for exposure to formalin when a tub of it dumped on her head. nasty. in medical OR training, i was exposed to a cadaver named "herbie" who sat in a tub full of formalin. i thought then and now i didn't ever want to end up like that, being poked and prodded after my death, with my body cut in sections like a lab experiment. but i digress.

"Formaldehyde is the primary cause of methanol's toxicity, since methanol is metabolised into toxic formaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase."

So does that mean it is alcoholic?

I don't think alcohol would work well for embalming, unless it's that Isopropyl stuff which is poisonous to humans.

The alcohol we drink is food for certain other organisms. It would likely be turned into vinegar by acetobactor bacteria and the like and become useless as an embalming fluid.

The egyptians made beer, but are probably not the first humans to discover alcohol. It would likely have been discovered anywhere there are bees and rain in times long forgotten, probably in many locations. Watered down honey is easily fermented by roving strains of yeast, and if the acetobactor doesn't get there first, will become mead (honey wine). I imagine those first tastes weren't very good as they would have been oxidized, but obviously people got the idea that it was good stuff and refined the process as we know wine and beer making go wayyyy back. Apple cider works better as apples have a better nutrient balance for yeast, but I digress.