_Narrow-toed_ shoes furnish another influence strongly operating to produce large joints. The great toe is drawn farther than usual toward the others, and its joint thrown out in the opposite direction. All the toes are more crowded, until some of them are forced out of place while corns and grown-in nails are developed or made worse. Width at the ball alone will not prevent these effects. French and English styles are in this respect often pernicious. The whole tendency of narrow toes is toward deformity; and those who cannot because they happen to be the style, refuse to wear them, should make up their minds to accept the consequences with a good grace. Another great cause of the prominence and swelling of the joint—which our author alludes to, but gives it hardly any of its real importance—is the backward pressure of the toe by shoes that are too _short_. This, in addition to causing sore nails, crowds the toes still more closely together, and pushes the joint still farther inward, away from its proper place. To illustrate. [Illustration: FIG. 10. FIG. 11. _a_, PHALANGES, OR BONES OF THE TOE; _b_, METATARSAL BONE; _c_, JOINT.] Supposing these to represent the bones of the great toe and its metatarsal bone—which, in their normal position, are on the same line—we can see that if the toe bones _a_ are bent toward the other toes first, and then pushed backward, it necessarily forces out the joint in the only direction in which it _can_ bend, which is inward. The greater and more constant the pressure against the end of the toe by the short boot or shoe, the larger the joint, and the more it will project from the inside of the foot; the more liable also to soreness, swelling, corns, bunions, inflammation, and settled disease, and the more awkward, ill-shaped, and uncomfortable, not only to walk with but to look upon. _High heels_ also do their share toward bringing on this deformity. They cause the foot to pitch downward on the toes, sometimes pushing it a size farther forward into the boot than it would go if the heel was only moderately high, thus creating the necessity for a _longer_ boot. _The crowding of the toes is increased; and as they meet with resistance or a backward pressure from both sides and the end of the shoe_, at the same time that there is a _forward pressure from the heel_ by the weight of the body, _of course the angle formed at the joint must be pushed out more acute, the foot_ making room for itself by stretching and treading over the upper at the sides. There is a peculiarity about the _Plumer_ last recommending it in this particular. The heel, on the bottom, is quite convex, which allows the heel of the foot to settle down into that of the boot more than usual, and thus what appears to be a high heel, outside, feels, on the foot, to be no higher than one made upon ordinary lasts an eighth of an inch lower. There is hence so much less pressure upon the ends of the toes.