A disinfectant or medicinal preparation derived from or related to alum; a pharmaceutical compound with antimicrobial properties.
From alumn- (alum) + -ol (chemical suffix for alcohols and phenolic compounds). A specialized pharmaceutical term from late 19th/early 20th-century medicine.
Before modern antibiotics, doctors used alum-based products like alumnol as disinfectants—alum is surprisingly good at killing bacteria, which is why it's still used in deodorants today.
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