Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/665

Rh Anatomists divide the skeleton of the foot into three portions, the tarsus, with seven bones, forming the heel and arch bones; the metatarsus, 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. 16, 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 extremely liable to contract disease.

It seems as if the general injuries to the body resulting from diseased 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 mentioned incidentally, and without proper notice of the connection between the diseases and the bad physiological conditions they induce. Physicians will prescribe for diseases caused largely by unsuitable clothing of the feet, without saying anything of the reform in the chaussure by means of which the disorder might be greatly mitigated, if not cured. A delicate woman was treated for months for a peculiar disease 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 aggravated her disorder. A paper showing the deleterious effects of such shoes on the health of women, read at a recent meeting of an association of doctors, seemed, according to the reports, to call out more objectors than it found friends. A competent woman physician excused 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