Secondly. The Toes are short and small in relation to the other parts of the foot. In many animals, the Monkey for instance (fig. [44], p. 89), the toes form the greater part of the foot; and, in some, the bones of the instep are reduced in number as well as in size: the reason being that, in such animals, the toes are required to perform a variety of offices—burrowing in the ground, scratching, holding on to the branches of trees, catching and tearing prey, &c.—for which their services are not needed by man.
It may here be noticed that one of the great points of dissimilarity between the foot and the hand consists in the difference which the length of the digits bears to the other components in the two members. They form nearly half the length of the hand, but not more than a tenth of that of the foot. Clearly, therefore, they constitute a far less important segment of the lower limb than they do of the upper, and are intended to perform much less important functions in it. In the hand the fingers and thumb may be said to constitute the essential part; whereas the toes do little more than help the foot to adapt itself to inequalities of the ground and so to obtain a firmer holding. In civilized countries, accordingly, where we walk, chiefly, upon even paths and paved streets, very little evil results from the loss of the services of the toes which is incurred by covering over the foot to protect it against the hardness of the roads.
We often hear the toes spoken of as ill-treated members, which are not allowed fair play because the art of man keeps them in a state of inertness and deprives them of their natural functions. Anatomy, too, gives some countenance to the idea, inasmuch as it shews that the muscles which minister to the toes are as numerous as those which are concerned in moving the fingers; and we occasionally see persons, who, having been born without hands, or having lost them, contrive to write and paint and do other unusual offices with their toes. Watch the movements in an infant’s foot as yet unshod. They are considerably more free than in your own; especially you will observe that there is a power of separating the great toe from the others and approximating it to them which you have, probably, altogether lost. The small size, however, of the toes, and the comparative fixedness of the inner, or great toe, prove, that they were never intended for anything like the same variety of purposes as the fingers, and shew that, under the most favourable circumstances, the pes could never be altera manus, as some would persuade us that it is. Certainly it was never intended to be an organ of prehension. Hence, although in practice, boot-makers may excite our wrath and deserve our condemnation, I don’t think that, in principle, they are so much to be complained of.
The third striking peculiarity of the human foot is the size of the inner or Great Toe and the firm manner in which its metatarsal bone is joined to the other bones, so as to render it a main pillar of support to the foot. These features of the great toe have reference to the share of the weight of the body which is borne by the inner side of the foot, more particularly during the last stage of the step, when the body is propelled forwards over the other foot. Hence it is sometimes called the “hallux,” from a Greek word (ἅλ-λομαι) signifying to bound or spring. The mobility of the thumb, enabling it to be opposed so easily to each of the other fingers, is a characteristic of the human hand; and the solidity of the great toe is equally, or even more, characteristic of the human foot. The great toe should be continued, from the instep, straight along the inner edge of the foot, or inclined a little inwards; often, as before mentioned, its phalanges become inclined outwards so as to interfere with the other toes[5].
Though, in many animals the number of the toes is the same as in man, this is not the case in all; and we may trace a gradual and progressive diminution of the number, in the following order.
Figs. [39].
Elephant.
[40].
Hippopotamus.
