[f. COUNTER- 3 + IRRITANT.] Med. A medical appliance used to produce irritation of the surface of the body, in order to counteract disease of more deeply seated or distant parts. Also fig.
1854. Macaulay, Biog., Bunyan (1860), 36. Counter-irritants are of as great use in moral as in physical diseases.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., IV. lxix. 336. She afforded him no counter-irritant.
1889. Boy’s Own Paper, 24 Aug., 747/2. I felt as if a flogging would even be welcome as a counter-irritant to mental pain.
So Counter-irritate v. trans.; Counter-irritation, irritation artificially produced in order to counteract the action of disease.
1864. in Webster, Counter-irritate, -irritation.
1882. Syd. Soc. Lex., Counter-irritation, the production of irritation, redness, vesication, or destruction of the skin, for the purpose of favourably influencing diseases of deeper seated or distant parts, by modifying the nutrition or mode of action of their structures.
