THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN FOOT. 



521 



Such seems to me to be the orig-in and course of the evohition of our 

 species in its hiter stages. 



In order to prove to you the former arboreal condition of man, by 

 placing before you some of the vestiges of his past that he still retains, 

 I have thought that I could not do lietter than to choose the compara- 

 tive study of the skeleton of his foot, that organ which was so pro- 

 foundly modified at the time of the transition from an arboreal to 

 a terrestrial life, and whose moditications seem to have determined 

 1 

 of 



propose to give 

 the most recent 



all the others. 

 3'ou the results 

 researches. 



The skeleton of man's foot contains 

 a certain number of bones, which should 

 be classified as follows: 



Tar.sHs: Calcaueum, astragalus, scaph- 

 oid, first, second, and third cuneiform, 

 cuboid. 



3£et< (tarsus : First, second, third, 

 fourth, and fifth metatarsal. 



Phalanges: Hallux (2), second digit 

 (3), third digit (3), fourth digit (8), 

 fifth digit (3). 



If we follow, from the beginning of 

 anatomical science, the w^ork that has 

 been done on the osteology of the foot 

 of man and of the primates generalh', 

 we shall find that, at the end of the 

 eighteenth century, the study of the 

 human foot was already advanced, 

 owing to the work of the anatomists 

 of the middle ages and of the begin- 

 ning of the modern period; the foot 

 of the monkey, the only animal that 

 could give us an approximate idea of 

 our arboreal ancestors, was, on the con- 

 trary, almost unknown, and all comparison was therefore impossible. 

 Daubenton and Camper were the first who took it up in a methodical 

 manner, although it seems that Linruieus, who in his celebrated classi- 

 fication of the animal kingdom grouped the monkeys with man in the 

 same order of primates, had alread}^ recognized the similarities that 

 occur between the simian foot and our own. 



Tt was, however, with Cuvier that the era of comparative and sys- 

 ttnnatic anatomical studies really opened, and in his works we begin 



Fig. 1.— Constituent elements of the Euro- 

 pean human foot (upper surface). I, Tar- 

 sus. II, Metatarsus. Ill, Phalanges. I, 

 II, III, IV, V, digital rays. 1, Astragalus; 

 2, Calcaneum; 3, Scaphoid; 4, cuboid; 5, 

 6, 7, first, second, and third cuneiform 

 bones; XX', Anatomical axis of the foot. 



