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.
5/8 (page 5)
![result. It will perhaps be a form to wliich the eye is not quite accustomed; but we all know how extremely arbitrary is fashion in all her dealings with our outward appearance, and how anything which has received her sanctiou is for the time considered elegant and tasteful, while a few years later it may come to be looked upon as positively ridiculous. That our eye would soon get used to admire a different shape, may be easily proved l)y any oue who will for a short time wear shoes constructed upon a more correct principle, when the prevailing pointed shoes, suggestive of cramped and atrophied toes, become as positively painful to look at as to most people of tlie present time are the once-admired pi'oportious of an unnaturally-constricted, waist. Having so far touched upon the errors of the present system of shoemaking, we now take up the means by which it is suggested that these may be remedied. It is not enough to say that the shoe should resemble in form the part it is intended to cover and protect, for unfortunately, few shoemakers know much either of the structure or uses of the different portions of the foot in its natural condition. FIC.3. FICI. Fig. 3. Outline of sole of ordinary shoe. Fig. i. Proper form of sole. The sole is the foundation upon which the shoe is built, and unless this part is made of a proper shape, the superstructure cannot he perfect. Hence the first thing to understand is the correct princijjle upon which the outline of the sole ought to be designed. This is very clearly laid down by Professor Meyer, although we think he is not quite right in making the line corresponding to the axis of the great toe, when ])rolonged backwards, pass thruugli the c&riire of the heel, as it throws the latter part too much to the inside, and produces a twist on the under surface of the foot, which does not exist in nature. The cardinal point to be attended to is, that the inner edge of the sole be](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22283274_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
