The discipline known as pharmacokinetics deals with the way drugs are absorbed, distributed, and eliminated by the body and how these processes can be described in quantitative terms. The pharmacokinetics of alcohol (ethyl alcohol or ethanol) is an important issue in forensic toxicology and clinical medicine, when the amount of alcohol in the body is estimated from the concentration measured in a blood sample.

The Swedish scientist Erik M.P. Widmark (1889-1945) made pioneer contributions to knowledge about the pharmacokinetics of ethanol during the early decades of the twentieth century. Widmark observed that after the peak concentration in blood had been reached, the disappearance phase seemed to follow a near straight-line course, suggesting that the system for metabolizing alcohol was saturated (fully occupied), so that the amount of alcohol metabolized each hour did not depend on the amount in the blood. This situation is...