Alcohol as medicine -FC

In A History Of the World in 6 Glasses it talked a lot about how people started thinking that distilled wines could be medicine. In Europe they called it aqua vitae which means water of life, this is interesting because people thought that this wine actually would save or prolong life. Now we know that if you drink too much of strong liquors it is not good for you. I could see how they thought it was medicine but all it did was cover up the real aliments. However the fact that Charles the bads physicians actually soaked sheets in it then wrapped him in them thinking that would fix his paralysis was a little far fetched of them. It was also not a good idea to candles so close to him while he was soaked in alcohol. This does however show to us how far we have come in the medical field. Also we gained new drinks from the distillation process that was developed.