Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/668

650 Fig. 8 shows a deformity of the foot resulting from inflammation of the metatarsal, phalangeal, or great-toe joint.

Fig. 9 shows an apparatus for the cure of bunyons. Its object is to draw the great-toe back into line with the great arch of the foot.



Erichson says, bunyon is caused by improperly cut shoes, and adds that to cure it the foot should be put in a shoe cut straight from heel to toe at the inner line of the sole. The toes are naturally quite flexible. Cases are well known of men and women who, being devoid of hands or Angers, have learned to use the feet and toes instead. Miss Biffin, of London, became expert as a portrait-painter; another woman used scissors to cut out all sorts of figures from paper; and men have been fully as capable with their toes. The Chinese and Hindoos are said to be able to pick up the most delicate objects with their toes. Yet in most feet the toes are wholly incapable of independent motion, while in many feet they are entirely stiff, and are distressing objects to look at.

In-growing nails are caused by shoes which are too short, and are a source of exquisite torture. This disease may degenerate into a worse condition called onyxitis (see Fig. 10), when it discharges a fetid humor, and may render a resort to the surgeon's knife a necessity. Caries of the bone may follow wounds, bruises, contusions, bunyons, corns, and calluses of the feet; and bunyons, corns, and calluses, as well as wounds, bruises, and contusions, may take on erysipelatous, scrofulous, ulcerous, or tumorous conditions. Exostosis