FASHION AND DEFORMITY IN THE FEET. 647 



Anatomists divide the skeleton of the foot into three portions, the 

 tarsus, with seven bones, forming the heel and arch bones ; the meta- 

 tarsus, with five bones just forward of the tarsus ; and the toes, which 

 contain fourteen bones, two in the great-toe, three in each of the other 

 toes ; beneath the ball of the foot, as it is called, are two small bones, 

 which lie under the articulation of the great-toe and the adjoining 

 metatarsal bones, making twenty-eight bones in each foot (see Figs. 10, 

 17, 19). 



The large articulating surface of the feet, and their numerous 

 blood-vessels, muscles, nerves, etc., render it peculiarly susceptible to 

 injuries. Their distance from the center of circulation, together with 

 the variations of temperature they have to endure, make them ex- 

 tremely liable to contract disease. 



It seems as if the general injuries to the body resulting from dis- 

 eased and crippled feet should be plain enough to attract attention, but 

 such does not appear to be the case. No complete treatise on the feet 

 has been produced. Physicians as a class seem to pay the subject but 

 little attention. In the books in which the diseases and injuries of the 

 feet are considered, the causes of disease, if stated, seem to be men- 

 tioned incidentally, and without proper notice of the connection be- 

 tween the diseases and the bad physiological conditions they induce. 

 Physicians will prescribe for diseases caused largely by unsuitable cloth- 

 ing of the feet, without saying anything of the reform in the chaus- 

 sure by means of which the disorder might be greatly mitigated, if not 

 cured. A delicate woman was treated for months for a peculiar dis- 

 ease which made her a complete invalid, by an eminent specialist, who 

 said nothing of the high-heeled, paper-soled, thin boots, the habitual 

 wearing of which greatly aggra- 

 vated her disorder. A paper show- 

 ing the deleterious effects of such 

 shoes on the health of women, read 

 at a recent meeting of an associa- 

 tion of doctors, seemed, according 

 to the reports, to call out more ob- 

 jectors than it found friends. A 

 competent woman physician ex- 

 cused herself for wearing such 



shoes because it was so hard to find hygienic shoes in stock, and added 

 that, when physicians prescribed reforms in clothing, they had to be 

 politic, to keep their patients ; and when asked if she ever saw a woman 

 who wore tight shoes, replied " No " ; nor did she know any who wore 

 tight corsets. 



Walking is the exercise that, more than any other, brings every 

 portion of the system into healthful activity. Many complaints would 

 disappear under a thorough and careful course of pedestrianism ; but 

 who can walk if the feet are sore or diseased ? General bad condi- 



