THE PREHENSILE FOOT OF EAST INDIANS. 491 



of the foot in the industry of a people advanced in civilization 

 does not appear to me to have been remarked. 



The Ectromelians are able to use their feet after a long and 

 patient education, but they seem to serve the part of supplement- 

 ary organs. A report has been made to the Society of Anthro- 

 pology (Bulletin, 1875) concerning the Ectromelian Ducornet, 

 who, with only four toes, painted, holding his brush between his 

 two middle toes. I saw one who was exhibited at Marseilles in 

 1889. He drank, ate, fired guns, played cards, wrote, and played 

 on several instruments of music with his feet. On a closer ex- 

 amination of him it appeared, as is observed in all similar cases, 

 that there was no movement of opposition of the great toe. A 

 special anatomical peculiarity is connected with this physiological 

 function of the foot the distance between the first and second 

 toes. Let us look into this feature among the Indians, taking for 

 our example the extremely remarkable type of Fig. 1. It repre- 

 sents the foot of a Tamil in Trichinopoly, in which the space be- 



Fig. 2. Nearest Possible Approach of the First and Second Toes in the same Tamil. 



tween the first and second toes was very large from birth. Tak- 

 ing the middle of the extremity of the first and the middle of the 

 second toe, I measured the two points A and B, the distance be- 

 tween which, on a foot placed in its usual position on the ground, 

 was forty-nine millimetres in the right foot and fifty-four milli- 

 metres in the left foot. This does not depend upon a simple di- 

 vergence of the ends of the toes ; the base participates in it, and it 

 seems to go back to the metatarso-phalangeal articulation. This 

 distance apart of the toes at the base is fifteen millimetres on the 

 right and sixteen millimetres on the left foot. When this Tamil 



ond toes. In New Guinea, says D'Albertis, natives secure themselves in walking by hook- 

 ing their great toe to a root or a bit of rock. 



