Our feet and their coverings.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Our feet and their coverings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    OUR FEET AND THEIR COVERINGS.* {From, the British and Foreign Medico-Ohirurgical Review for Jvly, 1862.) Of all subjects to which the efforts of social and sanitary reformers are directed, those acts or customs -v^hich produce serious physical ills without any compensating advantage or pleasure, would seem at first sight to offer the fairest field and easiest victory; but experience has unfortunately shown the difficulty of overcoming prejudice and folly, when sanctioned by prevailing fashion or long-continued use. One of the objects of the works named at the head of this article is to attack an evil which undoubtedly comes under this category, and even if the subject be deemed of little importance compared with the gii^antic schemes of regeneration to which our attention is so fre- quently called in this age of progress, it is one which has the great merit of possessing a simple and effectual remedy, requiring no sacri- fice, and within reach of all who will take the smallest possible trouble to avail themselves of it. But is it really of that trivial and unimportant nature that many are disposed to consider it % Is the proper conservation of the natural form and functions of so valuable a portion of the human frame as the foot not a worthy subject of consideration for the philanthropist and medical man? Is it. not a strange reflection, so far are the feet of all jjersons in our own country and time deformed by the voluntary and unnecessary adoption of an improper form of covering, that in Europe from the antique alone any knowledge of what ia beautiful in the adult human foot can be derived if We, bestow reasonable compassion upon the fate of the Chinese women, who dislocate their feet in obedience to the dictates of a barbarous custom, and yet we ourselves have submitted complacently for ages to tortures no less cruel. * 1. The Human Foot and the UamanHand. By Q. M. Humpliry, M.D., F.R.S., Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology ia the University of Cambridge.—Cambridge and London, 1861. 2. Whti the Shoe Pinches: a Contribution to Applied Anatomy. By Hermana Meyer, M.D., Professor of Anatomy in the University of Zurich. Translated from the German by J. S. Craig. —Edinburgh, 1860. m ^ Covering ; coviprisinr/ a full Translation of Dr. Camper's 1 mu'^i'^'''^ °f '''^ •^■les Dowie.—London, 1861. T The Proportiona of the Human Figure, p. 19, By J. Bonomi. London, 1857.