Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ DRESS AND CARE OF THE FEET; SHOWING THEIR NATURAL SHAPE AND CONSTRUCTION; THEIR USUAL DISTORTED CONDITION; HOW CORNS, BUNIONS, FLAT FEET, AND OTHER DEFORMITIES ARE CAUSED, WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR THEIR PREVENTION OR CURE. ALSO, DIRECTIONS FOR DRESSING THE FEET WITH COMFORT AND ELEGANCE, AND MANY USEFUL HINTS TO THOSE WHO WEAR, AS WELL AS THOSE WHO MAKE FOOT-COVERINGS. _ILLUSTRATED._ LONDON: WILLIAM TEGG. 1872. PREFACE. The object of this little treatise is to bring before the popular attention some ideas concerning the feet that are not generally familiar; to exhibit the producing causes of the common deformities and discomforts to which they are subject; to show the best means of preserving their natural shape and condition, or of restoring it as far as possible when lost; and to suggest better methods for their dress and general treatment, in order to their more perfect health, beauty, and performance of function. The subject has already received some little attention. Some time about the beginning of the present century Dr. Peter Camper, of Amsterdam—a distinguished man of his time—wrote a short dissertation upon the “Best Form of Shoe,” which was eventually translated and published in England in 1861, in connection with a larger work by Mr. James Dowie. Dr. Camper’s essay was excellent as a first effort in this direction, furnishing some ideas upon the form of the foot and the defect of its covering, which still remain hardly less just and appropriate. Mr. Dowie added some good suggestions, and faithfully exposed the faults of the foot-gear worn by the British army and the humbler classes; but a considerable portion of his book was taken up in the explanation and advocacy of elasticated leather—an article of his own invention—while the whole was written in a style too difficult to be generally read. Another work published in England was the “Book of the Feet,” by J. Sparkes Hall, issued a few years previous to that of Mr. Dowie. Though very interesting as a concise _history_ of the shoemaking art, it touched but slightly upon those abuses of the feet with which shoemaking is connected. But a late essay directly upon the subject, by Prof. Hermann Meyer, of Zurich, Switzerland, has a value superior in this respect to that of all the preceding ones. The present writer has intended to include all the important ideas of previous writers on the subject, together with such information as could be gathered from medical and other works, but going farther and adding such original notions as the observation and thought of his own mind could supply, with the purpose of making the whole as thorough and complete as possible, both from the point of view of the _physiologist_ and that of the practical _shoemaker_.