O. A. Merritt Hawkes 255 



As a problem in genetics the question of the inheritance of toe-type 

 had the interest of being a normal human character, whereas most of 

 those previously considered from the Mendelian standpoint have been 

 pathological. I wished to attack the problem simultaneously from 

 three points of view — first, an anatomical study was made by dissection, 

 by examination of skeletons, of living feet of child and adult, the foetal 

 foot and of radiographs ; second, statistics were collected as to the 

 percentages of the various types that occurred, and third, a study of 

 family histories was made by means of toe-tracings (Fig. 2). In order 

 to obtain these tracings, 7000 cards were circulated, each card having 

 printed on it, name (not for publication) and in another corner, right 

 foot. With the cards went the following instructions : 



" I am doing a piece of research upon the human foot, and I should 

 be very grateful if you would help me by doing as follows : — Place your 

 bare foot on the enclosed card, and with a pencil held upright draw an 

 outline of the toes. Do not draw between the toes. One side is for the 

 right foot, the reverse for the left. Please press the second toe out well, 

 until fiat, before drawing, as this toe is frequently not flat owing to 

 pressure of boots. 



I enclose cards also for each member of your family, parents, brothers, 

 sisters, children and grandchildren. 



Please put name on each card and state whether child or adult, male 

 or female." 



There are certain possibilities of error in the drawings: (1) the 

 pencil may not be held in the same upright position throughout the 

 drawing ; (2) the second toe may not be pressed out flat ; (3) the toe 

 nails may protrude beyond the toes and be of unequal proportional 

 lengths. The paper did not state the point to be studied, so that there 

 could not have been any prejudice in the mind of the recorder : particular 

 directions are given as to how the pencil should be held and there is 

 small likelihood of the position becoming changed in doing the first two 

 toes. That the direction "press the second toe out well" was duly 

 considered, was evidenced by the number of persons who explained that 

 it was difficult or impossible. In some cases, when the outline was 

 blurred or uncertain, it has been repeated and then the subject was 

 requested to note the relative protrusion. As a control over the 

 accuracy of the drawings, 97 persons (over two years of age) were 

 examined aftei- their toe-tracings had been made and amongst these 

 only one error occurred. 



