Alcohol is an important factor in modern civilizations, the source of great revenues to states, and of immense wealth to those who deal in products containing it. While wine, beer, hydromel, etc., have been in use from prehistoric times, the active principle common to them which produces the pleasant excitement and the disgusting intoxication, and which is concentrated in spirituous liquors, alcohol, has been known for only seven or eight centuries; it was unknown in antiquity. The story of the way the discovery of it was made is one of much interest.