an important grasping action. Unfortunately, however, it is generally thrust under the great toe and rendered useless by the agency of improper boots.
With such ill-made boots (see Plate 8, Fig. B) owing to the bones of the feet being prevented from exercising their proper movements in walking, the muscles below the knees, which are connected with those bones, waste for want of use. The foot, cramped into a motionless mass by the boot, thus becomes in its function, or rather want of function, very like the deformed "lily" of the Chinese, and the shrunken, calfless leg is in a similar way used simply as a stump. Since proper action in the lower part of the leg is thus prevented excessive work is thrown on the muscles of the thigh, &c., and exercise becomes painful and exhausting. Moreover, ill-formed shoes and boots are the cause of many painful affections of the feet, such as corns on the joints or between the toes, of the hard or soft variety, bunions or inflammations of the joints, ingrowing toe-nails, the extraction of which is one of the most painful operations known to surgery; inflammations of the roots of the nails (onchia), especially of the great toes, and painful callosities on all parts of the feet, besides the too common swellings and abrasions of the skin.
When, as in the narrow-toed boot I have described, the big toe is pressed outwards towards the centre of the foot, and the little toe inwards, as in Plate 8, Fig. B, which is only a moderate example
