Warts and All

Warts, those horny, homely growths on the surface of the skin, are often harmless annoyances that tend to disappear if ignored. Occasionally they can grow large or deep enough to cripple hands and feet or, if on the face, to cause psychological problems. But while warts have bedeviled man for thousands of years, physicians have yet to discover either the reason or the remedy for them.

Dr. Leon Goldman, a University of Cincinnati dermatologist, reports that doctors can say for certain only that warts are produced by a polyoma virus, a highly contagious carrier. According to Goldman's 20-year study, 60% of all warts are spread between family members; others are contracted in locker rooms, swimming pools and washrooms. He urges people with warts to cover them in order to prevent contagion. Neither Goldman nor his colleagues have found a satisfactory cure.

When necessary, most doctors remove warts by such medically proved methods as minor surgery, application of caustics, localized freezing or electrocautery. But many laymen have been equally successful with an assortment of magical home remedies. There is documentary evidence that warts have disappeared after being touched with a copper penny or a slice of raw potato, which is then buried during a full moon. Some sufferers insist that they have found relief in Tom Sawyer's prescription for "spunk water" (rain from a tree stump in the woods). Still others have employed the services of some old women in the hills of northeastern Kentucky who are said to cure warts merely by touching them.

Indeed, doctors are not above using such folk remedies themselves. In New York, researchers found that the wart count among some schoolchildren declined dramatically after doctors painted the growths with a bright vegetable dye. Dr. Goldman has tried an even more mystical method. He asks suggestible children to send him a detailed tracing of the wart-covered hand or foot. Then he burns the diagram and tells the youngsters that their warts will disappear in a few weeks. They usually do.

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