Although very many investigators have produced a wide variety of procedures for the determination of blood alcohol concentration (BAC), three scientists, Widmark, Harger, and Borkenstein, gained early widespread recognition for their extensive studies of alcohol and the drinking driver. Foremost of the three is E.P.M. Widmark at the Medical-Chemical Institute of Lund, Sweden who published his detailed procedure for a micro-method for the determination of blood alcohol in 1922 (2). In the United States, Rolla N. Harger at Indiana University not only described a micro-method for alcohol analysis in 1933 (3) but, also, invented a device for measuring breath alcohol in 1938 (4). The instrument known as the Drunkometer gained widespread usage in the United States because it did not require venipuncture. In 1932, Widmark published in German (5) a reprise of his many studies. R.C. Baselt of the Pathology Department of the University of California (Davis) brought Widmark's work to the attention of English-speaking scientists by editing a translation of Widmark's studies in 1981 (6). Widmark's contributions to the science of alcohol analysis have been internationally recognized by the conferral of the Widmark Award considered the highest international honor for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge of alcohol, drugs and traffic safety. Rolla N. Harger was the first recipient of the Widmark Award in 1965. In 1961 one of Harger's students, R. F. Borkenstein, a captain in the Michigan State Police and the third recipient of the Widmark Award in 1972, developed a breath alcohol analyzer, the Breathalyzer, (7) that captured a specific volume of breath, and quantitated the alcohol in it by determining the change in the color of a dichromate-sulfuric acid solution. The Breathalyzer, which eventually replaced the Harger Drunkometer, was used by Borkenstein and colleagues (8) to study the relationship between the BAC and accidents. Their Grand Rapids, MI study involving about 6,000 drivers with accidents and 7,000 drivers without accidents indicated that the probability of causing an accident sharply increased as the BAC increased.

The accomplishments of Widmark, Harger, and Borkenstein although very significant, are, also, examples which illustrate Peter Huber's comment that science, and how it is used or mis-used is, indeed, imperfect. That science can be and, often has been mis-used is the essence of the remainder of this essay. What is important to recognize is that the correction of the mis-used science required too many years to occur, years in which many drivers may have been falsely accused. One of Widmark's major accomplishments involved the development of the constants, ř and ß, the ratio between the BAC and the total amount of alcohol in the system and the rate of alcohol elimination from the system. Widmark's ratio was based on the ratio of mass /mass whereas modern data uses V (volume of distribution) as the ratio of volume/mass). Widmark used his ratio to calculate the amount of alcohol that had been consumed. Numerous charts and devices for calculating the reverse; i.e the BAC of an individual based on the number of drinks he or she consumed, are easily available, strongly promoted and often used by the gullible non-scientific driving public. Even the Ohio Supreme Court, in a 1980 ruling overturning a decision of Judge T. S. Hodson of Athens County municipal court (TR 80-5-194), incorrectly, recommended the use of such charts and devices. Widmark was careful to specify that his data involved 20 young adult males and 10 females after an overnight fast before consumption of a single bolus of alcohol, and that women, in general, had lower ř factors. It is obvious that the majority of DUI arrests and convictions since then do not conform to Widmark's conditions. Widmark carefully explained why in his terms ''the amount of alcohol consumed cannot be calculated for every case''. Chapter VI of Baselt's translation of Widmark's studies (6) details several explanations in support of that statement.

The variations in the volume distribution of alcohol are considerable. For adult males Schwar (9) gave averages varying from 0.62 to 0.798 with ranges from 0.59 to 0.90. For adult females the averages were from 0.55 to 0.66 and ranges from 0.46 to 0.86. These wide ranges mean that the resultant calculations have potentially large errors. A possible explanation for these variations lies in the adiposity and the age of the individuals. Another error in the use of the charts lies in the assumption that all individuals eliminate alcohol from their blood at the same constant rate. A. W. Jones (10) commented on the magnitude of inter- and intra-individual variations in the elimination rates as follows: ''Human beings show an enormous variation in their response to ethanol as well as other drugs. Besides difference in behavioral response the disposition kinetics show marked variations from person to person and also within the same person from time to time.......The notion of conducting an alcohol tolerance test to establish a person's rate of alcohol disposal seems hardly worthwhile considering the large within subject variance component. Instead, a range of elimination rates such as 9 to 25 mg/Dl/hr can be assumed to apply and in my experience this should encompass actual values for the vast majority of individuals.'' For the charts and devices to use an average elimination rate of 15 mg/Dl/hr when the individual's rate may vary almost three-fold is mis-use of scientific information and should not be accepted by the driving public.

The University of Oklahoma Police Department in its publication, The Police Notebook, describes their BAC Calculator (11) but includes the following statements: ''Important Note'': ''There is no blood alcohol calculator that is 100% accurate because of the number of factors that come into play regarding the consumption and reduction (burnoff) rates of different people. Factors include the sex (male/female)of the drinker, differing metabolism rates, various health issues and the combination of medication that might have been taken, drinking frequency, amount of food in the stomach and small intestine and when it was eaten, elapsed time, and others. The best that can be done is a rough estimation of the BAC level based on known inputs.''

Widmark's monograph (5,6) detailed how to prepare capillary tubes for the collection of ''finger-stick'' capillary blood as well as how to conduct the micro-procedure for the analysis of capillary blood alcohol. His procedures were widely accepted in Europe, whereas in the United States breath alcohol tests per the Harger Drunkometer and the Borkenstein Breathalyzer were the vogue. See Figures 1 and 2 for pictures of the two instruments. The editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association rejected a proposed article by Widmark on his methodology. R. Andreasson and A.W. Jones (12) provide an interesting anecdote on what might have happened if the editor had accepted Widmark's article. They conclude:''In retrospect, there is little doubt that during the 1930's the results of blood-alcohol analysis obtained according to Widmark's micromethod were considerably more accurate and precise when compared with estimating a person's blood-alcohol indirectly by analyzing a specimen of breath.''

Professor Rolla N. Harger (13) devised a micro-method for blood alcohol analysis in 1933, but is more widely recognized as the inventor in 1934 of the Drunkometer (14) which measured the concentration of alcohol in a breath sample. The Drunkometer was patented in 1936 with the rights given to the Indiana University Foundation. Indiana enacted their driving-under-the-influence-of-alcohol (DUI) law in 1939. Because the law specifically involved blood alcohol concentration the actual breath alcohol concentration had to be converted to a blood alcohol concentration. Harger and colleagues (15) overcame this obstacle by applying Henry's law to a solution of alcohol and water. They chose the 2100/1 ratio (multiply the breath alcohol concentration by 2100 to obtain the blood alcohol concentration) because the partition ratio between a mixture of water and alcohol at 25 degrees C at equilibrium is 2100/1. The problem with the use of this ratio will be described in a future essay. For now, it will be enough to note that the alcohol in the lungs is present in blood not water, that the temperature is not constantly at 25 degrees C., and that many measurements in humans have shown wide variations from 2100/1. A second invalid assumption in the use of the Drunkometer involves the determination of the volume of the breath sample to be analyzed for its alcohol content.

The operation of the Harger Drunkometer was briefly described by R. L. Donigan (16) in a citation from a Texas court as follows: ''The suspect is required to blow into a balloon. The breath from the lungs thus captured is allowed to expel itself through a tube containing a mixture of potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid until a certain color is reached. By a measure of the water displaced by the breath which has passed through this tube, it is determined how much air was required to create the color described. This amount is determined from a reading of a calibrated scale. The number from the scale must then be calculated and translated into a percentage of alcohol in the blood.'' The calculations assume that the average person's breath contained 5.5% carbon dioxide. If one measured the carbon dioxide content of the subject's breath, the volume of the breath sample could be then be calculated. Thus, with the amount of alcohol determined present by the permanganate oxidation, the weight per unit volume of alcohol could be calculated. The faulty chemistry of the Drunkometer is two-fold; The carbon dioxide concentration of human breath is not a constant (5.5%) for all drivers, and, likewise, the partition ratio for alcohol/water is not a constant 2100/1. The carbon dioxide content may vary according to gender, age, the presence of lung disorders, and the emotional state (hyperventilation) of the person being tested. Mason and Dubowski (17) reported the concentration ranged from 4.3 to 6.3 % W/V and that one could expect wider ranges for normal adults. According to W. C. Head (18) ''Statutes have erroneously assumed that the same partition ratio applies to everyone. Scientific studies have shown ACTUAL partition ratios to be as low as 1,100:1 and higher than 2700:1. A true average for all persons more accurately stated at 2300:1 and 2350:1......Statutes also erroneously assume that alcohol is absorbed and eliminated at identical rates by every person when in vivo testing thoroughly refutes this assumption.'' The possible error introduced by these two assumptions is great enough to make the accuracy of the BAC result well beyond the reasonable doubt the jurors have to consider.

Harger and colleagues at Indiana University were very vigorous in their promotion of breath testing for blood alcohol as evidenced by the sponsorship in 1948 of one-week courses on breath alcohol testing by the National Safety Council's Committee on Tests for Intoxication. Harger (19) defended the accuracy of his Drunkometer in a report titled ''Debunking the Drunkometer'' in the American Journal of Police Science. In a forward to his article the editor of the Journal wrote: ''For the past 20 years R. N. Harger, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry and Toxicology at the University of Indiana Medical School has made a special study of the problems relating to the accurate diagnosis of alcoholic intoxication......The Journal is pleased to present the views of an authority of Dr. Harger's standing on the accuracy of breath tests for measuring alcoholic intoxication.''

Dr. Harger wrote that the use of scientific procedures for arriving at the truth in forensic cases stimulates some people to seek flaws in the procedure. He goes on to write that ''since many police laboratories do not have graduate chemists, we felt that there was a need for a simpler method which could be handled by an intelligent police technician.'' Dr. C. W .Muehlberger (20), a forensic toxicologist for many years in Wisconsin and Michigan and an original member of the National Safety Council's Committee on Tests for Intoxication, responded to I. M. Rabinowitch's arguments against breath testing with the comments: ''our committee has never claimed that chemical tests are ''foolproof''. Obviously they are subject to all those errors which are characteristically human. Specimens may be taken in an improper manner, analysts can make errors and experts may voice opinions which seem contrary to general experience.'' It should be noted that 34 years after the introduction of the Drunkometer, the National Safety Council's Committee on Alcohol and Drugs urged abandonment of the practice of estimating the volume of alveolar air in a breath specimen on the basis of the weight of carbon dioxide present (21). In the following year the Council's Committee on Alcohol and Drugs' ad hoc Committee on Testing and Training listed sixty- six relevant references for the carbon dioxide content of breath (22).

The term, Breathalyzer, was the name for the specific invention of R.F. Borkenstein (7), but general usage has applied it to any device using breath for an alcohol analysis. A very good detailed description of the operation of Breathalyzer models 900, 900A, and 1000 is given by Browne, Weatherman and Baxter (23). The Breathalyzer was a definite improvement over the Drunkometer in that a definite volume of breath (52.5 ml) was captured in a special sample chamber thus avoiding the erroneous need for analysis of the carbon dioxide content of the breath. Before the test is started two vials containing the test solution of potassium dichromate and sulfuric acid are checked by the operator

of the test to determine that the volumes are exactly equal (3ml) and are, then, each placed in front of a photo cell at opposite sides of a light source. The electrical output of each photo cell is connected to the null point galvanometer. When the two vials contain an equal amount of ethanol and when they are balanced equidistant from the light source the galvanometer registers zero. A light source between the two vials is moved toward or away from them to achieve the null point on the galvanometer. When the breath sample is bubbled through the test vial a decrease in color will occur if alcohol was present in the breath. This decreased color will require a repositioning of the test sample to obtain the null point. The change in the position of the vial; i.e., the distance between the vial and the photocell will be a measure of the alcohol present in the sample. The accuracy of the test result depends entirely upon the integrity of the officer performing the test. He determines both the zero position and the final test position. That is what earned the device the title, Dial-A-Drunk. It not difficult to recognize that the police officer conducting the test may biased or even wish to be a winner of a MADD prize for the most arrests!

A second factor was identified several years after the Breathalyzer had been introduced. Radio frequency interference (RFI) occurs when certain radio waves cause the galvanometer to fluctuate or otherwise interfere with the galvanometer readings. Police radio transmitters, ham radio operators, cell phones, AM and FM radios, and other similar radio waves have been identified as interfering with the proper operation of the Breathalyzer. To offset this problem, an early solution was the insertion of radio frequency interference kits into the electrical conduit of the Breathalyzer. The warning of the presence of RFI included a red light or an alarm. Unfortunately, these devices were not completely satisfactory. The instrument manufacturers, today, use built-in detectors or shields, but test results of the National Bureau of Standards (23) indicate that the RFI problem still exists.

When R. A. Harte (24) introduced the Intoxilyzer in 1971, the wet-chemical procedure of the Breathalyzer was soon to become replaced by infra-red spectroscopy. Further comments on the Intoxilyzer will follow the next report on the partition ratio. The above review is a reminder that science, as Peter Huber wrote, is indeed imperfect and can correct itself, but the important fact to remember is that the corrections must be accepted more quickly. Too much use of faulty science means too much deceit of the driving public. Scientists should vigorously rebel against the improper use of science and encourage quicker implementation of scientific improvements in forensic alcohol determinations.

References

1. P. R. Huber, ''Galileo's Revenge...Junk Science in the Courtroom'' Basic Books Pubs.

pp. 222-223, 1991.

2. E. P.M. Widmark, ''Eine Micromethode zur Bestimmung von Aethylalkol im Blut'', Biochemische Zeitschrift, 132, 473-484, 1922

3. R. N. Harger, ''A Simple Method for the Determination of Alcohol in Biological Material.''

J. Lab. & Clin. Med., 20, 746-751, 1933.

4. R. N. Harger, E. B. Lamb, & R. R. Hulpieu, ''A Rapid Chemical Test for Intoxication Employing Breath'', JAMA 110, pp 779-785, 1938.

5. E. P. M. Widmark, ''Die theoretischen Grundlagenund die praktische Verwendbarkeit der gerichlich-medezinischen Alkoholbestimmung'', Fortschritte der Naturwissenschaftlichen Forschung, 11, 1-140, 1932.

6. R. C. Baselt, ''Principles and Applications of Medicolegal Alcohol Determination'' a translation of item 5 above, Biomedical Publications, Davis, CA, 1981.

7. R. F. Borkenstein & H. W. Smith, ''The Breathalyzer and Its Application'', Medicine, Science and the Law', 2, 13-22, 1961.

8. R. F. Borkenstein, R. F. Crowther, R. P. Shumate, et al, ''The Role of the Drinking Driver in

Traffic Accidents'', Indiana University, Dept. of Police Administration, Bloomington, IN, 1964.

9. T. G. Schwar, ''Alcohol, Drugs, and Road Traffic'', Juta & Co. Capetown, Africa, 1979.

10. A. W. Jones, pp. 128-129, '' Medical-Legal Aspects of Alcohol'' 4^th Ed, J. C. Garriott, Lawyers and Judges Publishing Co.Inc., Tuscon, AZ, 2003.

11. http://www.ou.edu/oupd/bac.htm

12. R. Andreasson & A. W. Jones, ''Historical Anecdote Related to Chemical Tests for Intoxication'', J. of Analytical Toxicology, 20, (3), 207-208,1996.

13. R. N. Harger, ''A Simple Method for the Determination of Alcohol in Biological Material'', J. Lab. & Clin. Med.,20,746-751, 1933.

14. R. N. Harger, E. B. Lamb & R. R. Hulpieu, ''A Rapid Chemical Test for Intoxication Employing Breath'', JAMA, 110, 779-785, 1938.

15. R. N. Harger, Alcohol/Water Partition Ratio, Science, Science News, 73, No. 1892, 1931.

16. R. L. Donigan, p. 95, ''Chemical Tests & the Law'' 2d Ed., Traffic Institute Northwestern University Publishers, Evanston, IL, 1966.

17. M. F. Mason & K. M. Dubowski, ''Alcohol, Traffic, and Chemical Testing in the United States: A Resume and Some Remaining Problems'', Clin. Chem. 20,126-140, 1974.

18. W. C. Head, p. 377, ''Breath Tests and Blood Alcohol Concentration'' 4^th Ed. , J. C. Garriott, ''Medical-Legal Aspects of Alcohol'', Lawyers & Judges Publishing Co. Inc. Tuscon, AZ, 2003.

19. R. N. Harger, ''Debunking the Drunkometer'' American J. of Police Science, 40,(4), 497-506, 1949.

20. C. W. Muehlberger, ''Medicolegal Aspects of Chemical Tests of Alcoholic Intoxication'', J. Criminal

Law & Criminology, 39, (3), 411-416, 1948.

21. National Safety Council Committee on Alcohol and Drugs, ''A Model Program for the Control of Alcohol for Traffic Safety'', Chicago, IL, 1967.

22. National Safety Council Committee on Alcohol and Drugs, ''Recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on Testing and Training'', Appendix A, Chicago, IL, 1968.

23. G. E. Browne, A. Weatherman, & R. Baxter, ''Methods for Breath Analysis'', pp.116-119, Medicolegal Aspects of Alcohol Determination in Biological Specimens. J. C. Garriott, Ed. P. S. G. Publishing Co. ,Littleton, MA, 1988.

24. B. Taylor & C. Kuyatt, '' NIST Technical Note 1297 Guidelines for Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results'' 1994, http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/guidelines/contents.html.

25. R. A. Harte, ''An Instrument for the Determination of Ethanol in Breath in Law Enforcement Practice'', J. Of Forensic Science, 16, (4), 493-510, 1971.

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