Editing Wart (section)

===Alternative medicine===
[[File:Bufo bufo 01 13Jul2009.jpg|thumb|Despite their appearance, [[True toad|toads]] do not cause warts]]
Daily application of the [[latex]] of [[Chelidonium majus]] is a traditional treatment.<ref>Gilca, Marilena, et al. [http://www.medicinabiomolecular.com.br/biblioteca/pdfs/Fitoterapia/fi-0373.pdf Chelidonium majus–an integrative review: traditional knowledge versus modern findings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205045303/http://www.medicinabiomolecular.com.br/biblioteca/pdfs/Fitoterapia/fi-0373.pdf |date=5 December 2020 }} ''Forschende Komplementärmedizin/Research in Complementary Medicine''2010; 17(5): 241–248.</ref>

The acrid yellow [[sap]] of [[Greater Celandine]] is used as a traditional wart remedy.<ref>[http://www.botanical-online.com/english/celandine_for_warts.htm Greater Celandine For Warts] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140717094406/http://www.botanical-online.com/english/celandine_for_warts.htm |date=17 July 2014 }}. botanical-online.com</ref>

According to English [[folk belief]], touching [[true toad|toads]] causes warts; according to a [[Germany|German]] belief, touching a toad under a [[full moon]] cures warts.<ref name="ley196312">{{cite magazine |last=Ley |first=Willy |date=December 1963 |title=The Names of the Constellations |department=For Your Information |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v22n02_1963-12#page/n46/mode/1up |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction |pages=90–99 }}</ref> The most common [[Northern Hemisphere]] toads have glands that protrude from their skin that superficially resemble warts. Warts are caused by a virus, and toads do not harbor it.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/reptiles-amphibians/toads-cause-warts.htm | title=Do toads cause warts? | publisher=science.howstuffworks.com | access-date=20 October 2012 | author=Clark, Josh | date=2 March 2009 | page=2 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016002453/http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/reptiles-amphibians/toads-cause-warts.htm | archive-date=16 October 2012 }}</ref> A variety of traditional [[folk remedy|folk remedies]] and rituals claim to be able to remove warts.

In ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]'', [[Mark Twain]] has his characters discuss a variety of such remedies.  Tom Sawyer proposes "spunk-water" (or "stump-water", the water collecting in the hollow of a tree stump) as a remedy for warts on the hand.  You put your hand into the water at midnight and say:

{{poemquote|Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts,
Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these warts}}

You then "walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody. Because if you speak the charm's busted."  This is given as an example of [[Huckleberry Finn]]'s planned remedy, which involves throwing a dead cat into a graveyard as a devil or devils comes to collect a recently buried wicked person.  Another remedy involved splitting a bean, drawing blood from the wart and putting it on one of the halves, and burying that half at a [[Crossroads (mythology)|crossroads]] at midnight.  The [[theory of operation]] is that the blood on the buried bean will draw away the wart.<ref>[[Mark Twain]], ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]'', [[s:The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Chapter VI|ch. 6]]</ref> Twain is recognized as an early collector and recorder of genuine [[American Folklore|American folklore]].<ref>LeMaster, J. R. (1993) ''The Mark Twain Encyclopedia'' (Taylor and Francis, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=zW1k-XS6XLEC&pg=PA293 293–94] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107065759/https://books.google.com/books?id=zW1k-XS6XLEC&pg=PA293 |date=7 January 2017 }}, {{ISBN|0-8240-7212-X}}.</ref>

Similar practices are recorded elsewhere.  In [[Louisiana]], one remedy for warts involves rubbing the wart with a [[potato]], which is then buried; when the "buried potato dries up, the wart will be cured".<ref>{{cite journal|author=Webb, Julie Yvonne |title=Louisiana Voodoo and Superstitions Relating to Health|journal=HSMHA Health Reports|year=1971|volume=86|issue=4|pmc=1937133|pages=291, 296–97|doi=10.2307/4594154|pmid=4324337|jstor=4594154}}</ref> Another remedy similar to Twain's is reported from [[Northern Ireland]], where water from a specific well on [[Rathlin Island]] is credited with the power to cure warts.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Ballard LM | title = An approach to traditional cures in Ulster | journal = The Ulster Medical Journal | volume = 78 | issue = 1 | pages = 26–33 | year = 2009 | pmid = 19252727 | pmc = 2629017 }}</ref>