The author approaches the subject from a new point of view. He is endeavoring to show that suggestion is an important, if not the main factor, in relieving the patient from the warts scattered over a portion of his body.
To support his opinion he states that there are published a good many reliable cases where the warts have been removed by the peculiar "gift" of conjurers. Clinically, it is known that sometimes, when one wart is removed, the others located far from the one removed disappear simultaneously.
Not only local applications, but also various internal remedies, as monosulphid of sodium, trinitine, especially magnesia in small doses (0.10 per cent.) will remove the warts, owing not to the action of the remedy, but to the suggestion exercised by the physician upon the patient.
Suggestion is the cause of the disappearance of warts, after covering them with an indifferent powder; also, when by removing the "mother-verucca" by means of caustics, the remaining fall off—the unconscious suggestion of the physician is the acting factor. When we remember that vasomotor disturbances producing bullæ, and even bloodsweat, can be evoked by suggestion, we may be inclined to accept the possibility that a psychical impression may bring forth a change in the anatomical structure of the papillary layer and lead to the disappearance of warts.
J Cutan Genito-Urin Dis.
December 1897;15:595.
