254 First and Second Toes in Man 



The persons examined may be considered as fairly average of the 

 population, as they came from some schools in Birmingham, two in 

 Lancaster and a number of institutions in the Midlands, in which the 

 children were drawn from all parts of England. The analysis shows 

 the scarcity of all types except L and >Si. It is noticeable that there is 

 a distinct sex bias in the 8 type, the females being twice as numerous 

 as the males. 



My method of examination was to have the person under observation 

 stand upright with the mesial surfaces of the feet together. I then 

 looked down upon the feet, my eyes being as nearly as possible above 

 the middle of the metatarsal bones. In most cases the toe-type could 

 be easily and rapidly determined, but, in a number of cases, the second 

 toe had to be held flat down during the examination and, in some 

 persons, the first toe had also to be held in its undeformed and primitive 

 position. My method differed little from that of Weissenberg (1895), 

 which he describes thus, " I lay the foot on the ground or on a stool and 

 hold the leg upright, and after laying flat the toes, observe them from 

 above in a line parallel with the crista tihice. This appears to me the 

 correct method of observation, when the sight falls in the middle of 

 the foot." 



It must be emphasised that what has been studied is the relative 

 apparent length of the first two toes, or, in other words, the protrusion 

 of one toe beyond the other. When beginning the research it was hoped 

 that not only would the relative protrusion be noted, but that exact 

 measurements of the amount of the protrusion would be obtained. 

 This was abandoned for several reasons. Measurements on the living 

 foot could have been made with considerable accuracy by first arranging 

 the toes in their normal position, but it would have been impossible to 

 take such measurements, as I was only allowed to examine the feet of 

 persons in Institutions after undertaking to spend the minimum of time 

 in the examination. This compelled me to resort to a personal decision 

 as to which toe was the longer. In the great majority of cases the 

 decision is obvious and easy and hence the error from the personal 

 equation is very small. 



Owing to the distortion of the average foot (p. 256) measurements 

 were quite impossible from the toe- tracings (Fig. 2, p. 250), upon which 

 the hereditary part of the work depended. A study of even a few family 

 trees indicated that it was the actual protrusion and not the amount 

 of the protrusion which was of fundamental importance and therefore 

 the lack of measurement was nut as important as it appeared. 



