Today they'd call that child abuse.... it was a common 'old wives remedy' for babies who wouldn't settle too... :-)

I'm not 100% sure, but I think some of those child remedies for teething pain, etc., such as Calpol, have alcohol in. Once when we were camping with our son as a baby (a bad mistake - don't do it!) we gave him a dose of Calpol to help him sleep. Unfortunately it seemed to have the opposite effect, and made him start 'singing' just like many of us would after a pint or two :-)

We had to take him away in the middle of the night for a walk (with us carrying him of course), to avoid disturbing the other campers, until he finally dropped off to sleep, by which time we were knackered! :-)