Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/409

Rh than a thousand steps are taken on each foot, the result would not be pleasant even to imagine.

The position of the foot is important. To turn out the toes seems to me to be not only untrue to nature, but objectionable as well as inelegant. Camper regarded it as incontestabiy the proper position. For the following reasons I believe that the toes should be directed forward, the inner margins of the feet parallel: It is desirable that the propulsion of the body onward from, and consequent thrust backward on, the foot, and especially on the great-toe, should be in the direction of its length rather than obliquely across it, not only as giving a firmer bearing from which to propel the body onward, but as diminishing the friction on the sole and consequent tendency to foot-sore. This applies also to the smaller toes in a less degree. The long axes of all the toes continued backward seem to converge on the heel. By standing with the bare foot and springing forward it can readily be seen how much more tendency there is to slide on the sole when the foot is turned out than when it is directed forward. In the latter position, too, the arch is much more firmly braced up—a fact recognized by surgeons who advise, in cases of flat-foot, that the toes should be directed inward rather than outward. In standing, the everted position is not more stable. When a body stands on four points I know of no reason why it should stand more firmly if those points be unequally disposed. The tendency to fall forward would seem to be even increased by widening the distance between the points in front, and it is in this direction that falls most commonly occur.

Those who look on the human foot as fully partaking of the beauty of which artists in every age have regarded the human body to be the highest expression, ought not readily to admit that the boot which best conforms to its outline, reveals its features, and expresses its leading characteristics, will require an apology for want of elegance. I, at any rate, can not admit anything of the kind. The human foot is, moreover, an object of far more than the ordinary interest belonging to every part of the human structure. In the monograph already mentioned I ventured to suggest that, anatomically, there is no more marked distinction between man and the lower animals than is to be found in the special development of the foot.

However much we may regard it as in itself calling for admiration on account of its fitness for the purposes it has to fulfill and for others it may on occasion serve, the human foot is far more remarkable as an adaptation of the mammalian type, modified to suit a purpose kindred to but differing from that which the corresponding member supplies in other animals. The heel has its special form and signiticance in that man only has one adapted for crushing an offensive object beneath it. The large size and important function of the great-toe is also a specially human feature. In the mammalian typical limbs the bones of the hand and foot (or rather, to avoid confusion, in four-handed or four-