The following considerations connected with the human foot may be quoted as so many in dications that the erect attitude is natural to man : 1. the articulation of the foot at right angles with the leg; 2. the great comparative size of the foot, contrasted with that of other animals ; 3. the great transverse extent of the foot ; 4. the predominance of its solid parts, the tarsus and metatarsus, over its moveable part, the phalanges ; 5. the direction of the me tatarsal bone supporting the great toe; its situa tion and want of mobility ; 6. the limited mo bility of the phalanges of the foot as compared with those of the fingers ; 7. the horizontal po sition of the os calcis;* the excess of its trans verse extent at its posterior over that of its an terior part, and the developement of its tuber cles ; 8. the great strength and developement of the calcaneo-cuboid ligament ; 9. the early ossification of the bones of the foot as compared with those of the hand.
The extraordinary extent to which art can modify the positions of the several bones, and the form of the whole foot, is remarkably ex emplified in the case of the Chinese foot. It is well known that, among other barbarities practised on Chinese females, their feet are from an early period subjected to the most violent pressure, with the view of reducing them to that diminutive size which is esteemed a point of great beauty. hence the anatomical examination of a foot thus compressed is a point of great interest, not alone to the physio logist, but also to the surgeon, as indicating what properly applied force may do when em ployed at a sufficiently early period. An inte resting account of such an examination was communicated in the year 1829 to the Royal Society by Mr. Bransby Cooper, from whose paper we extract the following statements.
The foot at first view had the appearance of deformed; it was remarka bly short; from the heel to the great toe its measurement did not exceed five inches; it was very much contracted in its transverse dimen sions, and the instep extremely high, being un usually convex not only from before backwards, but also from side to side.
" The position of the os calcis," to use Mr. B.Cooper's words," is very remarkably altered: instead of the posterior projection which usually forms the heel, a straight line is preserved in this direction, not deviating from the line of the tibia; and the projecting point which forms in an ordinary foot the most posterior process into which the tendo Achillis is inserted, touches the ground, and becomes the point d'appui for sustaining the whole weight of the body. The articular surface of the os calcis in connexion with the cuboid bone is about half an inch an terior to and two inches above this point ; while the astragalar joint is behind and some what below the calco-cuboidal articulation ; consequently the direction of the os calcis, (in its long axis,) instead of being from behind for wards, is from below upwards, with the slightest possible inclination forwards. The most pro minent parts of the instep are the round head of the astragalus and the cuboidal articulation of the os calcis. From this the remaining tarsal bones slope downwards at nearly a right angular inclination to join the metatarsal bones, whose obliquity is still downwards, until they rest on their phalangeal extremities." The points of support are the os calcis, the anterior extremity of the metatarsal bone of the great toe, and the dorsal surface of the fourth and fifth toes, which are bent under the foot so as to press the ground at this part.