The human foot and the human hand

by George Murray Humphry

This consideration will ensure attention while I give a brief account of the anatomy of man’s lower limb, more particularly of the foot.

Structure of the Lower Limbs.

The weight of the trunk is transmitted to the knee (see fig. [4], p. 15) by a single bone—the thigh-bone. This is the longest bone in the body, measuring, on the average, nearly eighteen inches. Above, it is jointed with the haunch-bone of the pelvis at the hip-joint. From the knee two bones descend to the ankle. Of these one is much the larger, and bears the chief of the weight. The other serves to give attachment to muscles, and to strengthen the ankle-joint. It runs down on the outer side of the ankle, forming there what is called the “outer ankle;” and a process of the larger bone runs down, in like manner, on the inner side, and forms the “inner ankle.” The front and inner side of the larger bone are close under the skin. This part is called the “shin,” being so named perhaps from the word “chine” or edge, because the leg presents an edge along the front, to facilitate its cleaving a way through the air, water, grass, or underwood. The shin itself is not particularly tender; but the skin is a good deal exposed here, and, as it lies so near the hard bone, it is easily injured; and, when “broken,” it is often difficult to heal.

In some very tall persons, and particularly in those who are so tall as to be called Giants, I have found the leg or shank bones, that is, the bones between the knee and the ankle, very long, disproportionately long to the rest of the skeleton. They are so in the skeleton of the Irish Giant, O’Byrne, which is preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, in another Irish Giant in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, and in some other specimens which I have had an opportunity of measuring. In the name “Long Shanks” given to Edward I., the word “shanks” probably included the thigh as well as the leg, just as we are in the habit of applying the word “leg” to the whole of the lower limb.

Bones of the Foot.

Fig. [1].

There are 26 bones in the Foot. The hinder 7—called tarsal bones—are short and thick; they form the hinder part of the instep. In front of them lie 5 metatarsal bones, one passing, forwards, from the fore part of the tarsus to each toe. Behind, these are close together, and are connected with the tarsus. As they run forwards they diverge a little from one another; and their anterior ends rest upon the ground, and form the “balls” of the toes. They constitute the fore part of the instep. The remaining 14 bones are the toes. They are arranged in rows, like soldiers in a phalanx, three deep, and are hence called phalanges.

You observe that, although each of the other toes has 3 bones, the great toe has only 2. In this respect, therefore, it is an imperfect, or, rather, an incomplete member. The deficiency does not depend upon a want of length in the great toe; for this is usually as long as the second toe; in some persons it is a good deal longer; and it is always distinctly longer than the outer two toes. The reason for there being only two phalanges instead of three probably is because the great toe is required to be stronger than any of the others; and an additional bone would have tended to weaken it. I have, elsewhere‍[1], given reasons for thinking that it is the middle phalanx which is absent in the great toe.