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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



more of them frequently has to find room for itself either above or 

 under its fellows ; the joints all rigid, the muscles atrophied and 

 powerless ; the finely formed arch broken down ; everything which is 

 beautiful and excellent in the human foot destroyed, to say nothing of 

 the more serious evils which so generally follow corns, bunions, in- 

 growing nails, and all their attendant miseries. 



Now, the cause of all this will be perfectly obvious to any one who 

 compares the form of the natural foot with the last upon which the 

 shoemaker makes the covering for that foot. This, in the words of 



B 



Fig. 15 A, natural form of the sole of the foot, the great toe parallel to the axis of the whole 

 foot ; B, the same, with outline of ordinary fashionable boot ; C, the necessary modi- 

 fication of the form of the foot consequent upon wearing such a boot. 



the late Mr. Dowie, "is shaped in front like a wedge, the thick part 

 or instep rising in a ridge from the center or middle toe, instead of 

 the great toe, as in the foot, slanting off to both sides from the middle, 

 terminating at each side and in front like a wedge ; that for the inside 

 or great toe being similar to that for the outside or little toe, as if the 

 human foot had the great toe in the middle and a little toe at each 

 side, like the foot of a goose ! " The great error in all boots and 

 shoes made upon the system now in vogue in all parts of the civilized 

 world lies in this method of construction upon a principle of bilateral 

 symmetry. A straight line drawn along the sole from the middle of 

 the toe to the heel will divide a fashionable boot into two equal and 

 similar parts, a small allowance being made at the middle part, or 

 " waist," for the difference between right and left foot. Whether the 

 toe is made broad or narrow, it is always equally inclined at the sides 

 toward the middle line, whereas in the foot there is no such symmetry. 

 The first or inner toe is much larger than either of the others, and its 

 direction perfectly parallel with the long axis of the foot. The second 

 toe may be a little larger than the first, as generally represented in 



