FASHION IN DEFORMITY. 



739 



Grecian art, but it is more frequently shorter ; the other rapidly de- 

 crease in size (Fig. 15, A). The modification which must have taken 

 place in the form of the foot and direction of the toes before such a 

 boot can be worn with any approach to ease is shown at C. Often it 

 will happen that the deformity has not advanced to so great an extent, 

 but every one who has had the opportunity of examining many feet, 

 especially among the poorer class, must have met with many far worse. 

 The two figured (Fig. 16), one (C) from a laboring workingman, the 

 other (A and B) from a working-woman, both patients at a London 



B 



Fig. 16. English Feet deformed by wearing improperly shaped Shoes. (From Nature.) 



hospital, are very ordinary examples of the European artificial de- 

 formity of the foot, and afford a good comparison with the Chinese. 

 It not unfrequently happens that the dislocation of the great toe is 

 carried so far that it becomes placed almost at a right angle to the 

 long axis of the foot, lying across the roots of the other toes. 



The changes that a foot has to undergo in order to adapt itself to 

 the ordinary shape of a shoe could probably not be effected unless 

 commenced at an early period, when it is young and capable of being 

 gradually molded into the required form. It seems perfectly mar- 

 velous that any one who had ever looked at a healthy pair of human 

 feet could have thought of the possibility of wearing a stiff, unyield- 

 ing shoe of identical form for both right and left, and yet the very 

 trifling difference which is at present allowed is a comparatively mod- 

 ern innovation, and is even now too frequently disregarded, especially 

 where most needed, as in the case of children. 



The loss of elasticity and motion in the joints of the foot, as well 

 as the wrong direction acquired by the great toe, are not mere theo- 

 retical evils, but are seriously detrimental to free and easy progres- 

 sion, and can only be compensated for in walking by a great expendi- 

 ture of muscular power in other parts of the body, applied in a dis- 

 advantageous manner, and consequently productive of general weari- 



