Natural history of genital warts.

Genital warts were known to the ancients, and many Greek and Roman writers referred to them. The early history of the disease has recently been reviewed by Bafverstedt (1967), who pointed out that some of the early synonyms for the lesions, particularly the words 'fig' and 'condyloma', have survived into modern times. In the Middle Ages, descriptions of diseases were less precise than in the ancient world, but some of the genital lesions described (Lanfranc, 1306) may have been warts.