This book about warts begins with a quotation from Lempière in 1951 that justifies it:
Of all the futile disorders of the skin, it would be hard to find any that are regarded with greater contempt by the lay public and yet capable of resisting a greater variety of treatment than the group of papillary lesions commonly known as warts.
The addendum to this insight may be that warts are viewed with almost equal contempt by dermatologists. Derms may welcome an easy case of warts on a busy day but almost universally despise the "$1000 wart" that steadfastly eludes treatment while rendering the physician, in the eyes of the patient, increasingly ineffectual.