FOOT DISEASE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 11, 8 October 1936, Page 5

FOOT DISEASE

Prevalence of Verruca

Many people, reading accounts of a. foot disease which, it was stated iu a message from Christchurch, is taking New Zealand in its stride, have become worried and consulted their local chiropodists, to learn, no doubt with relief, that varruca, as the affliction is called, is a complaint that chiropody has had well in hand for many years, and is continually treatiug, with success.

Miss M. Clark, a Wellington chiropodist, has had a number of consultants recently who had read their newspapers and developed qualms about having fallen victims to this “epidemic,” as it has been called, of verruca. She was able to assure them that it was quite an old and common complaint, easily cured and not infectious.

Miss Clark said that the little hard growths on the soles of the feet by which verruca manifests itself may cause a pricking sensation, and are very often mistaken for corns. It is more similar, however, to a foot wart, and can, through the blood stream, be transmitted to other parts of the body, sometimes affecting the hands. Its cause may be one of many, such as a local irritation, a deficiency, such as lack of lime salts, in the blood, or overaction of the sweat glands of the feet. One of the most common causes is the wearing of rubber-soled shoes, without stockings or socks, in hot weather, as moisture of any kind will favour the development of the growth. The affliction will always yield to treatment, although it is inoculable, but the fact that it has once been treated and cured will inoculate the system against it afterward. Like scarlet fever, it is one of those things that can be suffered only once. Nevertheless, though little known of by the general public, who are perhaps not as “foot-minded” as they should be, verruca is common shop-talk among chiropodists, who will all admit to having come up against and treated hundreds of cases.

So although there is no cause for alarm or fearful imaginings in regard to verruca, it is perhaps a good thing that people have been brought to think more about their feet and the care of them. Anyone who contracts verruca may suffer a great deal of pain, and the only course to adopt is to secure the services of a chiropodist before the growth has bad a chance to spread.

Further items of interest to women are to be found on Pages 6 and 7.