655 



Fig. 502.— Hinged Shoe. FiG. 502.— Articulated Shoe. 



the hopes of their inventors. They are difficult to make, easily 

 injured, and of small solidity, and their advantages are wholly of 

 the problematic order. 



Mayer has recommended a shoe whose internal border is 

 thicker than the external, in such a way that the plane of the 

 plantar surface of the shoe shall be incHned outward, and instead 

 of the concavity of the ordinary shoe, where the foot is pressed 

 when in position of rest, there is a convexity which promotes and 

 even increases the dilatation of the foot. This mode of shoeing 

 has for its inconvenience the exj)osure of the sole to contusions. 

 It supposes an extensive expansion of the foot which is not natu- 

 ral ; the horizontal plane is amply sufficient in ordinary circum- 

 stances. We have, however, used it advantageously in j)reventing 

 the pressure of the sole against the shoe by means of a sheet of 

 gutta-percha. "We have used it in almost complete contraction, 

 and we think we have noticed, with Hartmann, that the dilatation 

 once started by a mechanical means, not too severely appUed, 

 nature continues it, with the assistance of that style of shoe. In- 

 stead of giving that special shape of the shoe in its entire length, 

 it has been proposed to have it only at the branches ; each heel 

 presenting at its internal border a thickness double, or even treble, 

 that of the external, by which the shoe is inclined outward by its 

 plantar and becomes horizontal by the ground face. It is flat at 

 the toe and the quarters, and is the shoe with slippers of de la 

 Broue (Fig. 503), of SoUeysel, and that Vatrin has used in pro- 

 posing to have the internal half of the width of the shoe inclined 

 (Fig. 504). It thus resembles the shoe geneU or with ears, of 



