[a. med. L. ūrtīcātiōn-, ūrtīcātio, n. of action f. ūrtīcāre to URTICATE. Cf. F. urtication, It. orticazione, Pg. urtic-, urtigação.]
1. The action or function of uticating or stinging like or as a nettle; a stinging operation.
1655. Jer. Taylor, Unum Necess., V. § 3. 253. A body may be said to be lustful though it be asleep, or eating, without the sense of actual urtications and violence, by reason of its constitution.
1858. Lewes, Sea-side Stud., 146. Certain minute organs found in all Polypes, and variously styled ‘thread-capsules,’ ‘filiferous capsules,’ or urticating cells, are organs of urtication or stinging. Ibid., 148. Here, then, we have the organ, without any corresponding function; ‘urticating cells,’ but no urtication!
b. A burning or pricking sensation suggestive of stinging with nettles.
1859. Huxley, Oceanic Hydrozoa, 94. The mucus which produces the well-known urtication of the human skin.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 483. So that … urtication … may be excited in them [i.e., elements of a certain eruption] by mechanical irritation or heat.
2. The flogging or pricking of a benumbed part or paralytic limb with green nettles, so as to restore sensation, etc.
1837. J. G. Millingen, Curios. Med. Exper., II. 55. A case of obstinate lethargy was cured … by repeated urtication of the whole body.
1870. J. G. Bertram, Flagellation, xxii. 207. Elidœus Paduanus recommends whipping with nettles, or urtication,… for assisting the development of the eruption in exanthematic diseases.
1873. M. Collins, Miranda, III. 206. Urtication is the best cure for rheumatism.
