The Lichen tropicus, an inflammation.
1736. I found she had only the prickly heat, a sort of rash, very common here in summer.—J. Wesley, ‘Works’ (1830), i. 36. (N.E.D.)
1822. [It is] called the prickly heat, from the pungent feeling that attends it.—J. Flint, ‘Letters from America,’ p. 10. (N.E.D.)
1830. The prickly heat is a complaint sufficiently defined by its name and is one that would have compelled Job to make use of an extra potsherd to scratch himself withal, if Satan had thought proper to afflict him with it.—N. Ames, ‘A Mariner’s Sketches,’ p. 54.
