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  • Warts don't need to be dressed : Glutarol : the effective new treatment for warts.
  • Warts don't need to be dressed : Glutarol : the effective new treatment for warts.
  • 'Greasy warts' occurring on the abdomen
  • Female genitalia covered with syphilitic warts. Watercolour, c. 1824.
  • A cauliflower, representing the Chinese nickname for genital warts, with the message that AIDS is worse. Colour lithograph by AIDS Concern, Hong Kong, ca. 1997.
  • A man and woman embracing in a hotel room, in need of condoms to avoid infection with genital warts. Colour lithograph for Stichting SOA-bestrijding, ca. 1999.
  • A fat hunchbacked man with two large warts on his nose with hairs growing out, admires his fashionable wig in a hand-mirror; a grinning barber trims his wig in front of a table on which there are various hair-dressing appliances. Engraving, 1773.
  • Wart virus infection
  • Wart virus infection
  • Papilloma wart virus infection
  • Leucoma and wart on the tongue
  • Chiropodologia, or, A scientific enquiry into the causes of corns, warts, onions, and other painful or offensive cutaneous excrescences : with a detail of the most successful methods of removing all deformities of the nails; and of preserving, or restoring, to the feet and hands their natural soundness and beauty. The whole ... systematically confirmed by the practice and experience of D. Low, chiropodist.
  • Chiropodologia, or, A scientific enquiry into the causes of corns, warts, onions, and other painful or offensive cutaneous excrescences : with a detail of the most successful methods of removing all deformities of the nails; and of preserving, or restoring, to the feet and hands their natural soundness and beauty. The whole ... systematically confirmed by the practice and experience of D. Low, chiropodist.
  • Man with a melanotic wart on the side of his nose
  • Gaultheria procumbens Kalm Ericaeae. Wintergreen, teaberry, boxberry, chickerberry. Distribution: North American forests. Named for French physician/botanist Jean Francois Gaultier (1708-1756). Physician to the French King, emigrated to Quebec in 1742. Researched flora of North America, died of typhus (Oakeley, 2012). Source of oil of wintergreen. Ten pounds of oil can be extracted from a ton of leaves. Toxic effects: Stupidity, swelling of the tongue, food craving, epigastric tenderness, vomiting, dyspnoea, hot skin, tachycardia, restlessness (MiIlspaugh, 1974). Active chemical is methyl salicylate. Used topically for musculo-skeletal conditions, it is converted to salicylic acid when absorbed. Excess use has caused a death. Salicylic acid is also used for warts and corns (first described by Dioscorides in 70CE)
  • Euphorbia milii Des Moul. Euphorbiaceae. Crown of Thorns - so called because of its very spiny stems. Distribution: Madagascar. The latex contains a copper-containing amine oxidase, a lectin, lipase, peroxidase, and a diamine oxidase. In vitro the latex is synergistic with ketoconazole against Candida albicans (thrush). All Euphorbia have a toxic white latex, and in Europe this has been used as a folk remedy to treat warts. It can cause skin allergies and the smoke from burning them is toxic. the genus named for Euphorbus (fl. circa 10 BC – 20 AD), the Greek physician to the Berber King Juba II (c. 50 BC – 23 AD) of Numidia, Euphorbia milii is one of the tropical spurges, with fierce, cactus-like spines, grown as a house plant. The sap of spurges is used in folk medicine for treating warts (not very effective), and, historically, as a purgative - the word spurge being derived from the French word for purgation. The sap (probably dried) was administered inside a fig because it is so corrosive that it would otherwise burn the mouth and oesophagus – a technique used today, rather more subtly, with ‘enteric coated’ medications. The sap contains a potential anti-leukaemic chemical, lasiodoplin, and is also used in drainage ditches to kill the snails which carry the parasitic trematode which causes fasciolaris. It does not kill the fish. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Seed head of a thuja tree. This plant has natural antimicrobial properties and is used in a variety of preparations for wart removal, thrush, and ringworm.
  • Plumbago auriculata Blume Plumbaginaceae Plumbago, Leadwort. Distribution: South Africa. It is used traditionally to treat warts, broken bones and wounds. It is taken as a snuff for headaches and as an emetic to dispel bad dreams. A stick of the plant is placed in the thatch of huts to ward off lightning.” Iwou (1993) reports other Plumbago species are used to cause skin blistering, treat leprosy, induce blistering, and to treat piles, parasites and to induce abortions. The genus name derives from the Latin for lead, but authors differ as to whether it was used as a treatment of lead poisoning, or that when it was used for eye conditions the skin turned the colour of lead. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Opuntia humifusa Raf. Cactaceae Eastern prickly pear, Indian fig. Distribution: Eastern North America. Stearns (1801) reports 'OPUNTIA a species of cactus. The fruit is called the prickly pear. If eaten it turns the urine and milk in women's breast red'. This is likely to be Opuntia robusta. The ripe fruits are reported edible, raw, and the leaf pads also, either raw or cooked. The fine spines, glochids, cause severe skin irritation so should be wiped off or burnt off prior to cooking and eating. Moerman (1998) reports that O. hemifusa was widely used by Native American tribes for wounds, burns, snakebite, warts (fruit), and as a mordant for dyes used on leather. Widely used, with the spines removed, as a famine food, and dried for winter use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Opuntia humifusa Raf. Cactaceae Eastern prickly pear, Indian fig. Distribution: Eastern North America. Stearns (1801) reports 'OPUNTIA a species of cactus. The fruit is called the prickly pear. If eaten it turns the urine and milk in women's breast red'. This is likely to be Opuntia robusta. The ripe fruits are reported edible, raw, and the leaf pads also, either raw or cooked. The fine spines, glochids, cause severe skin irritation so should be wiped off or burnt off prior to cooking and eating. Moerman (1998) reports that O. hemifusa was widely used by Native American tribes for wounds, burns, snakebite, warts (fruit), and as a mordant for dyes used on leather. Widely used, with the spines removed, as a famine food, and dried for winter use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Charles Patin. Line engraving by C. Lefebure, 1662, after himself.
  • Charles Patin. Line engraving by C. Lefebvre, 1663, after himself.
  • A penis with a skin disease on the glans; and two examples of diseased eyes. Chromolithograph, c. 1888.
  • A fig plant (Ficus carica): fruits and leaves. Watercolour.
  • Fig (Ficus carica L.): fruit and leaves. Colour and coloured aquatint by G. Pera, c. 1825, after P. Tofani.
  • Fig (Ficus carica L.): leaf and fruit. Coloured aquatint by G. Pera, c.1825, after O. Muzzi.
  • C19 Chinese MS moxibustion point chart:
  • Greater celandine (Chelidonium majus): entire flowering and fruiting plant. Coloured etching by A. Duménil, c. 1865, after P. Naudin.
  • The Electrical Vacuum Tube: W.D. Ross demonstrates its medical use with a woman patient. Photograph, ca. 1922.
  • Chelidonium majus (Greater celandine)