Abstract

Verrueae or warts of the soles are notoriously stubborn to all forms of treatment. They tend to recur and as many as 20 per cent may show this tendency. The many methods of dealing with them, ranging from the orthodox to Tom Saw-year’s method of burying a dead cat in the Church graveyard at midnight, are in themselves an admission of failure leading to frustration in both patient and doctor alike. In a minority of cases superficial X-ray therapy is tried as a last resort and should this fail the unhappy patient resorts to insoles, plasters, chiropody and finally to treating himself. It is true to say, whilst no patient likes having verrueae, no doctor enjoys treating them.