The doctor finally gave up and told her to go home and soak the wound in coal oil twice a day and pray for healing. The remedy worked. As I suspected, a detailed search of the book did not show coal oil as a recommended remedy for any malady. I now believe use of the concoction was for purely psychological reasons.
Prickly heat causes an itchy rash of small red raised red spots with a prickling or stinging sensation. Prickly heat usually affects parts of the body covered by clothes, such as the back, abdomen, neck, upper chest, groin or armpits.
Heat rash, also known as miliaria rubra, prickly heat, summer rash or wildfire rash is a condition in which obstruction causes leakage of sweat into the deeper layers of the epidermis, provoking a local inflammatory reaction giving rise to the typical appearance of redness and larger blister-like lesions.