138 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



NAEEOW JAWS AND SMALL FEET 



By RICHARD COLE NEWTON, M.D. 



MONTCLAIE, N. J. 



A FEW simple precautions in rearing our children would redound 

 to the development of the race in quite unexpected ways. The 

 writings of Bogue and others have proved that the small jaws and ir- 

 regular teeth of Americans are due to the simple fact that the teeth and 

 jaw bones have never been developed by chewing hard foods as nature 

 intended us to do. As one consequence of this non-development, the teeth 

 are poor in their chemical constituents, which, added to their irregular- 

 ity and consequent non-occlusion, renders them so prone to decay that 

 a middle-aged man or woman with a complete denture (i. e., 32 teeth) 

 is so great a rarity that dentists are wont to rejoice when they discover 

 such an one, even as the angels are said to do over one sinner that re- 

 penteth. In like manner the chiropodist might be supposed to rejoice, 

 if one in his humble calling has the springs of joy within him, over the 

 equally great rarity, a perfect adult human foot. For there is only one 

 other thing so generally distorted and defective as the average human 

 jaw, and that is the average human foot. We bring our children up to 

 despise the Chinese who deliberately distort and malform the feet of 

 their female children. Our virtuous conversation incites in our chil- 

 dren's minds a horror of the foot-binding process by which the Mon- 

 golian parents prevent the natural growth of their daughters' feet and 

 thus improve (sic) upon nature, and yet we allow our daughters to 

 wear so-called Cuban heels and French heels and pointed-toed shoes, 

 sometimes called one-toed shoes, until their feet are as truly malformed 

 as the Chinese woman's, albeit in a less degree. 



There seems to be more logic in the Chinaman's distortion of the 

 foot than in that of the occidental races. We are assured that no 

 Chinese woman of rank can expect to marry well if she has natural feet, 

 like a working woman, any more than our girls expect to marry well if 

 they have a natural waist. A Chinese lady of high degree abroad upon 

 the highways must be attended by two or three maids or helpers sup- 

 porting her, to show to the admiring multitude that she can not walk 

 without help. This is what her feet have been compressed for. This 

 proves that she is a lady and fully fitted to marry a gentleman of rank 

 and attainments. The gentleman, on his part, has also taken pains to 

 show that he is incapacitated for manual labor. His finger nails have 

 been allowed to grow to an incredible length and for fear that they may 



