Revelation!
/Two minutes after posting about Herpes, a deleted character from Roald Dahl’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, I was told by my buddy, Shep, that Veruca Salt (another character from the book) was named after a verruca, a wart caused by the HPV virus, and one that can be transmitted sexually.
That sly devil. The publisher may have edited out Herpes, but Dahl managed to squeeze in a different sexually transmitted disease in his place.
Talk about commitment to an idea.