Treatment.—­In the multiple warts of children the health should be braced up by a change to the seaside.  A dusting-powder, consisting of boracic acid with 5 per cent. salicylic acid, may be rubbed into the hands after washing and drying.  The persistent warts of young adults should be excised after freezing with chloride of ethyl.  When cutting is objected to, they may be painted night and morning with salicylic collodion, the epidermis being dehydrated with alcohol before each application.

Venereal warts occur on the genitals of either sex, and may form large cauliflower-like masses on the inner surface of the prepuce or of the labia majora.  Although frequently co-existing with gonorrhoea or syphilis, they occur independently of these diseases, being probably acquired by contact with another individual suffering from warts (C.  W. Cathcart).  They give rise to considerable irritation and suffering, and when cleanliness is neglected there may be an offensive discharge.

In the female, the cauliflower-like masses are dissected from the labia; in the male, the prepuce is removed and the warts on the glans are snipped off with scissors.  In milder cases, the warts usually disappear if the parts are kept absolutely dry and clean.  A useful dusting-powder is one consisting of calamine and 5 per cent. salicylic acid; the exsiccated sulphate of iron, in the form of a powder, may be employed in cases which resist this treatment.

#Adenoma.#—­This is a comparatively rare tumour growing from the glands of the skin.  One variety, known as the “tomato tumour,” which apparently originates from the sweat glands, is met with on the scalp and face in women past middle life.  These growths are often multiple; the individual tumours vary in size, and the skin, which is almost devoid of hairs, is glistening and tightly stretched over them.  A similar tumour may occur on the nose.  The sebaceous adenoma, which originates from the sebaceous glands, forms a projecting tumour on the face or scalp, and when the skin is irritated it may ulcerate and fungate.  The treatment consists in the removal of the tumour along with the overlying skin.

The exuberant masses on the nose known as “rhinophyma,” “lipoma nasi,” or “potato nose” are of the nature of sebaceous adenoma, and are removed by shaving them off with a knife until the normal shape of the nose is restored Healing takes place with remarkable rapidity.

#Cancer.#—­There are several types of primary cancer of the skin, the most important being squamous epithelioma, rodent cancer, and melanotic cancer.

[Illustration:  FIG. 101.—­Paraffin Epithelioma.]