It was a popular myth in the old days that you can get warts from toads. Not true - now we know that's bogus. Warts are actually benign tumors of the epidermis caused by a virus. The virus responsible is the human papillomavirus, a double-stranded DNA-virus. The virus resides in the bottom layer of the epidermis and replicates into almost normal-looking skin. Different sub-types of the human papillamavirus cause different types of warts. Some subtypes also cause cervical cancer and other more obscure types of wart-related cancers.

Another myth about warts is that they have