1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hammer-toe

HAMMER-TOE, a painful condition in which a toe is rigidly bent and the salient angle on its upper aspect is constantly irritated by the boot. It is treated surgically, not as formerly by amputation of the toe, but the toe is made permanently to lie flat by the simple excision of the small digital joint. Even in extremely bad cases of hammer-toe the operation of resection of the head of the metatarsal phalanx is to be recommended rather than amputation.